Three recitals were successfully held for this year’s Piano Duo Festival on April 15th at Greene Music. We had 25 teams from 13 teaching studios competing in four categories. Thank you to the studios of Eunice Ahn, Eunji Bae, Jim Guerin, Bon Kim, Jeeyoon Kim, Kathy Kim, April Lin, Yu Carole Liu, Carol Ong-Chen, Isabelle Roux, Anna Stal, Lori Vickers, and Vivian Wu. Our two judges, Steve Baker and Sanaz Rezai, were very impressed with the level of playing by all teams. Also, special thanks to Yuko Maruyama, Isabelle Chen, Carol Ong-Chen and Lori Vickers, who volunteered for the event. Congratulations to all students for participating in the event. We hope to see you again next year!

2023 Piano Duo Festival Results

Category I: Ages 5 – 9
1st place: Jimin Lai & Andrew Ong
2nd place: Clarie Chen & Daren Ren
3rd place: Olivia Chen & Blake Chuang
Honorable mentions: Lillian Wang & Jimin Lai, Mia Lyu & Michelle Lyu

Category II: Ages 10 – 12
1st place: Yen-Cheng Wu & Vincent Wu
2nd place: Jovanny Fernandez & Joshua Hsu
3rd place: Bokyung Logan Kwon & Jiwoo Aileen Park
Honorable mentions: Fuga Liam Endo & Christopher Taiyo Whitacre, Allison Duong & Katelyn Duong, Kayla Tsubokawa & Caleb Felker

Category III: Ages 13 – 15
1st place: Ling Zhong & Charity Chen
2nd place: Charity Chen & Peiran Liang
3rd place: Veronica Xu & Stephen Xu
Honorable mentions: Sophie Tsui & Hsueh-Heng (Helen) Lu, Anita Qian & Alethia Li

Category IV: Ages 16 – high school
1st place: Ruei-Chi Lai & Davina Zhu
2nd place: Tony Qu & Hsueh-Heng (Helen) Lu
3rd place: Vinh Son Nguyen & Gracelyn Nguyen

Thank you for participating in the 2023 Bach Festival. Here are the results for the AMB Festival:

1st Place #4 Viktor Shen
2nd Place #2 Yeema Liu
3rd Place #5 Cooper Kistler
Honorable Mention – #5 Sophia Wang

Teachers must log into the scjbf.org website to view the CWA results.

Congratulations to all competitors and teachers in this year’s MTACSD Concerto Competition. All students performed beautifully and expressively and hopefully feel rewarded for their hard work. I want to give special thanks to the following who made this event possible:

Robert Catalano and Greene Music, Sun Yung Cho, Hernan Constantino, Karen Follingstad, Susanna Han, Inessa Litvin, Gaiana Mndoian, Cho-Hyun Park, Viktor Shekhtman, Pasha Tseitlin, and Lori Bastien Vickers! I also want to thank Jay Jay Lim for allowing us to use the Greene Music Education Center for teachers to pick up the judges comment sheets later this week!

We are excited that this year all 6 division first-place winners will be performing with the Mira Costa College Symphony Orchestra, Oceanside, under the direction of Mr. Branden Muresan.

Dates and performances are:

Friday-Saturday, March 17-18, 2023, 7:30 pm

Soloists
Amy Zhang (Mozart Concerto No.23 in A Major, K.488, Mvt III)
Richard Lee (Beethoven Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Mvt I)
Andrew Zhang (Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Mvt I)

Friday-Saturday, May 19-20, 2023, 7:30 pm

Soloists
Daniel Torrero (Weber Concerto in F Major, Op.75, Mvt I)
Beichen Li (Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor, Mvt I)
Ethan Zhou (Paganini Violin Concerto, No.1 Op.6, Mvt I)

Tickets and other information available at https://miracostatheatre.universitytickets.com/w/default.aspx?cid=168

Dr. Kay Etheridge, Chair
MTACSD Concerto Competition

2023 MTACSD CONCERTO COMPETITION RESULTS

DIVISION I (Piano through 11 yrs)
First Place – Amy Zhang
Second Place – Aiden Park
Third Place – Blake Hawkinson
Honorable Mentions – Clara Stone, Alex Hawkinson

DIVISION II (Piano 12-14 yrs)
First Place – Richard Lee
Second Place – Aaron Ye
Third Place – Daniel Park
Honorable Mention – Kanon Endo

DIVISION III (Piano 15-18 yrs)
First Place – Andrew Zhang
Second Place – Huizi Zhong
Third Place – Robin Moon
Honorable Mention – Eric Li

DIVISION IV (Winds)
First Place – Daniel Torrero (bassoon)
Second Place – Lauren Suh (flute)
Third Place – Daniel Tran (bassoon)

DIVISION V (Strings through 13 yrs)
First Place – Beichen Li (violin)
Second Place – Helen Wang (cello)
Third Place – Jasmine Chan (violin)
Honorable Mention – Benjamin Luo (violin)

DIVISION VI (Strings 14-18 yrs)
First Place – Ethan Zhou (violin)
Second Place – Hannah Lee (violin)
Third Place (tie) – Brianna Baek (violin), Caden Jiang (violin)
Honorable Mention – Alvin Wang (viola)

Congratulations to all participants who performed in the Popular Music Festival this weekend! Thank you to all participating teachers, who prepared their students for this first in-person Popular Music event since the start of the pandemic. The three recitals were held at the beautiful Cuyamaca College Theatre and provided a marvelous auditory display of the talents of the participants. We enjoyed listening to jazz, pop, boogie, rag, movie and video game music as well as works by favorite contemporary composers. The selections included improvised music and original arrangements by teachers and students. We even had a performance on electric guitar, a singer accompanying herself on piano, and a pianist performing to a Latin percussion track.

Dr. Taylor Smith of Cuyamaca College and Yuko Maruyama served as judges. Thank you to all the volunteers who helped out throughout the day: Irina Bessonova, Kathy Kim, Yuko Maruyama, Leslie Olson, Carol Ong-Chen, and Chutaphin Yeager

Participating studios: Eunji Bae, Irina Bessonova, Jim Guerin, Yoonhee Huh, Kathy Kim, Philip Lim, Yu Carole Liu, Yuko Maruyama, Leslie Olson, Carol Ong-Chen, Anna Stal, and Chutaphin Yeager

We hope to see you again next year!

November 12, 2022, was a gorgeous and exciting day at Point Loma Nazarene University where the Sonata Contest in Memory of Jane Smisor Bastien, was held. It was a joy to hear and see so many of our students! We had 295 entrants this year.

I want to thank our incredible team of volunteers! First and foremost, thank you to MTAC member, Dr. Victor Labenske for co-sponsoring our event and helping us to secure Point Loma Nazarene University as our facility. Thank you to Brian Goral and Chutaphin Yeager for organizing our lovely breakfast and lunch. Thank you to Dr. Mitzi Kolar, our wise adviser on all MTAC procedures. Thank you to our branch president Yuko Maruyama for helping us communicate with our teachers and student families. To our other MTAC member volunteers: Sarah Victor, Karlin Labenske, Miriam Cole, Eleanor Hum, Xiao-Yan Sui, Magdi Bornemisza, Hua Wang, Isabelle Roux, Dan Yu, Carole Liu Yu, and Ting Ting Zhang, thank you so much for your time.

Other volunteers: Riley Vickers, Lindsey Heinrich, Brittney Heinrich, Patty Rudolph, Hector Hum, Helena Trinh, Annalise Chang, Tiffany Hsiao, Jeffrey Yang, Francisco Mamon, Anne Pitaya, Chelsea Clements, and to the several Point Loma Nazarene music students who volunteered: we thank you so much for your time.

To my husband, Eric, thank you for your time, patience, and technical expertise to help organize the event.

We are very grateful to our highly esteemed judges for the day: Dr. Sanaz Rezai (Los Angeles), Joanne Stohs (Northern San Diego), Mark Mendez (Montebello), Teri Watson (Fullerton), Dr. Rob Watson (Fullerton), La Vaun Beyer (Orange County), Ardes Abad (Bellflower), Crystal Rivette (Azusa) and Madeline Miller (Valencia). We thank them for their time, dedication, and musical expertise.

We hope to see everyone again next year!

Sincerely,

Lori Bastien Vickers, Chairperson

2022 SONATA CONTEST RESULTS