2021 Pop Festival Acknowledgement

Posted on December 18, 2021December 18, 2021 by Miriam Cole

Did you just listen to a theme from a movie or a video game, a Justin Bieber song or a hymn? In an MTAC San Diego event? Yes! It was heard at the virtual presentation of the Annual Popular Music Festival just this past weekend. The students expressed their appreciation of the piece before the video was played and listeners enjoyed the many renditions of ragtime, ballads, blues, boogie and others. What a refreshing change from “serious” music.

It was apparent from the quality of the performances on the videos that the students enjoyed learning and performing their pieces. Thank you students and teachers for your preparation and participation in this unique MTAC San Diego event.

Grateful acknowledgements go to the evaluators, Yuko Maruyama and Dr. Taylor Smith. Co-chairs Chutaphin Yeager and Miriam Cole with a lot of help from Yuko Maruyama made this event a reality. Many thanks to the participating teachers:

Irina Bessonova, Paul Burd, Miriam Cole, Brian Goral, Jill Griffin, Victor Labenske, Jiwon Lee, Philip Lim, Yuko Maruyama, Leslie Olson, Carol Ong-Chen, Anna Stal, Anna Vasilyeva, Elena Vizuet, and Chutaphin Yeager.

2021 Sonata Results & Acknowledgement

Posted on November 16, 2021November 16, 2021 by Lori Bastien Vickers

November 13, 2021 was an exciting day as we happily re-opened our MTACSD doors for the Sonata Contest in Memory of Jane Smisor Bastien! It was a joy to hear and see students performing live again. We had 283 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 and helping us with Covid protocols so that we could hold our event in-person again. To our other MTAC member volunteers: Sarah Victor, Karlin Labenske, Miriam Cole, Chase Hills, Angelina Hardy, Eleanor Hum, Xiao-Yan Sui, Jamie Lin, Rachel Mendoza, Magdi Bornemisza, Hua Wang, Isabelle Roux, Denise Lepard; thank you so much for your time.

Other volunteers: Riley Vickers, Lindsey Heinrich, Brittney Heinrich, Patty Rudolph, Hector Hum, Jason Wanner, Francisco Mamon, Alex Yerbury, Lachlan Yerbury, Chelsea Clements, Paul Otterson, and to the several Point Loma Nazarene music students who volunteered; thank you so much for your time.

To my husband, Eric, thank you for your time 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), Dr. Randi Rudolph (Phoenix, Arizona), Erika Ramos (Redlands), Joanne Stohs (Northern San Diego), Mark Mendez (Montebello), Teri Watson (Fullerton), Dr. Ellen Kim (Fullerton), Dr. Masako Klassen (Fullerton), and Jo Ellen Vandruff (Orange County). We thank them for their time and expertise.

We hope to see everyone again next year!

Sincerely,

Lori Bastien Vickers, Chairperson

2021 SONATA CONTEST RESULTS

Group 1A – Bastien	Group 1B – Bastien
1^st Place – Ruitong Xia	1^st Place – Farrah Fangao
2^nd Place – Lucas Zhang	2^nd Place – Jovanny Fernandez & Connor Su
3^rd Place – Sara Park & Angeline Wang	3^rd Place – Maya Tsubokawa
Group 2A – Vandall	Group 2B – Gillock
1^st Place – Janelle Chen	1^st Place – Angela Cai
2^nd Place – Nathan Chou	2^nd Place – Kadmus Ma
3^rd Place – Maya Almog	3^rd Place – Clara Stone
Group 3A – Alexander	Group 3B – Gillock
1^st Place – Briana Au	1^st Place – Aiden Park
2^nd Place – Aiden Liu	2^nd Place – Alice Zhang
3^rd Place – Jovan Lim	3^rd Place – George Feng
Group 4A – Bober	Group 4B – Clementi
1^st Place – Angela Han & Katelyn Li	1^st Place – Elena Chen
2^nd Place – Celine Karyodisa	2^nd Place – Coye K. Miao
3^rd Place – Astrea Archibald, Karissa Christman & Amanda Tseng	3^rd Place – Yvonne Gao & Henry Sun
Group 5A – Clementi	Group 5B – Diabelli
1^st Place – Ruiya Xia	1^st Place – Isabella Nguyen
2^nd Place – Elizabeth Weng	2^nd Place – Benny Chen
3^rd Place – Seojin Lee	3^rd Place – Kayla Hanoch
Group 6A – Vandall	Group 6B – Kuhlau
1^st Place – Andrew J. Lee & Davin Mach	1^st Place – Amy Zhang
2^nd Place – Maya Hanoch	2^nd Place – Chloe Chen
3^rd Place – Anya Davis & Nikita Mouravyov	3^rd Place – Jenny Wu
Group 7 – Kuhlau	Group 8 – Beethoven
1^st Place – Chloe Li	1^st Place – Owen White
2^nd Place – Selena Chang	2^nd Place – Ella Xing
3^rd Place – Evonne Fangao	3^rd Place – Tyler Chang, Rien Chen & Sarah Deng
Group 9 – Haydn	Group 10 – Mozart
1^st Place – Amber Zhang	1^st Place – Adora Xiao
2^nd Place – Bryce Liu	2^nd Place – Edison Choy
3^rd Place – Minhtu Nguyen	3^rd Place – Sameer Prakash
Group 11 – Beethoven
1^st Place – Cynthia Zhang
2^nd Place – Yilin Zhu
3^rd Place – Cindy Cao

Sonata Finalists Posted 11.13.21

Posted on November 13, 2021November 13, 2021 by Yuko Maruyama

2021 Chopin Festival Results & Acknowledgement

Posted on July 3, 2021July 3, 2021 by Jessie Chang

Chopin Festival 2021 was virtual this year. It was very encouraging to see that the talented young musicians in our community are still producing high quality of music making despite the ongoing pandemic.

Thank you to the participating teachers who continue to educate and inspire your students!

Irina Bessonova, Magdi Bornemisza, Sun Yung Cho, Chaling Huynh, Dmitry Kirichenko, Cho-Hyun Lee, Shuang Li, Inessa Litvin, Yu Carole Liu, Vera Lukomsky, Alexander Mirolyan, Cho-Hyun Park, Anna Savvas, Viktor Shekhtman, Lynn Sundfor-McPherson, Chetan Tierra, Melissa Tierra, Luba Ugorski, Anna Vasilyeva, Dan Yu, Ting Ting Zhang, and Jia Sheng Zhou

We had three distinguished judges: Kocyan Wojciech, Andrew Park, and Jenny Shin. They have selected the top three winners in three divisions and gave their valuable comments. Congratulations to all of the students, teachers, and families. Each contestant will receive a Chopin logo mask along with the judges comments mailed to his/her teacher’s studio.

Out of 41 contestants, here are the Crystal Trophy recipients:

Division I
Richard Lee, 1st Place ($200)
Rien Chen, 2nd Place
Amber Zhang, 3rd Place

Division II
Andrew Zhang, 1st Place ($250)
Bradley Carpiuc, 2nd Place
Cynthia Zhang, 3rd Place

Division III
Zixuan Chen, 1st Place ($300)
Aidan Wahlmann, 2nd Place
Eric Wang, 3rd Place

I am hopeful to see you next year in person. Until then, please stay well and motivated!

2021 Goodlin Virtual Festival Results & Acknowledgement

Posted on May 31, 2021June 2, 2021 by Yuko Maruyama

Congratulations and a big thank-you to all of the students, teachers, and families who participated in the 2021 H. B. Goodlin Virtual Festival! We received a total of 102 student applications for this event.

Each applicant prepared and recorded their instrumental performances on video for this virtual festival. It is our hope that preparing and polishing the audition pieces, filming their own performances, and submitting the online program applications were all valuable learning experiences for the participants.

I would like to acknowledge the participating studios, who continued to teach remotely most of this school year and despite the ongoing pandemic continued to educate and inspire these talented music students in San Diego:

Eunice Ahn, Ning An, Magdi Bornemisza, Dana Burnett, Chia-Ling Chien, Sun Yung Cho, Jan Coleman, Hernan Constantino, Joseph Cota, Susan Culbertson, Ethan Dong, David Garrett, Berta Godkin, Angelina Hardy, Eleanor Hum, Chaling Huynh, Philip Lim, Inessa Litvin, Yu Carole Liu, Rinna Livshin, Pamela Martchev, Brenda Martin, Elena Mashkovtseva, George Maxman, Alexander Mirolyan, Jared Nepute, Alexander Palamidis, Anna Savvas, Viktor Shekhtman, Seiran Sohn, Chetan Tierra, Michael Tseitlin, Luba Ugorski, Stanley Wang, Yun-Yin Wu, Angela Xing, Ariel Yang, Elena Yarritu, Mei Yin, Dan Yu, Tingting Zhang, and Yao Zhao

We were fortunate to have the following distinguished adjudicators for this event. These judges worked long hours to review each video performance, and wrote thoughtful comments on how our students can grow artistically:

Annie Bosler, Sarah Chan, Andrea Garreffa, Maya Ginsberg, Gail Lew, Laszlo Mezo, Derek Polischuk, Jay Posteraro, Dmitry Rachmanov, Ulli Reiner, Philip Tyler, and Bryan Verhoye

Finally, I would like to thank the H. B. Goodlin Scholarship Foundation Board President Jaclyn Summers, and the Board Members Sun Yung Cho, Connie Gale, Lee Galloway, Brian Goral, and Hua Wang, for making this event happen. A special thanks goes to Dr. J. Mitzi Kolar for her expertise and wisdom, and Lea Schmidt-Rogers for always being there for us.

Thank you again for your participation in this year’s Goodlin Virtual Festival. The judges’ comments will be emailed to each participant within the next few weeks. We hope to see you again next year.

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Winners		Winners
Division I Keyboard	Emily Chen	Division III Keyboard	Zixuan Chen
($100 Each)	Rien Chen	($500 Each)	Malvyn Lai
	Chloe Li		Emma Li
	James Rong		Luke Qiao
	Amy Zhang		Aidan Wahlmann
			Eric Wang
			Yilin Zhu

Division II Keyboard	Bradley Carpiuc	Junior Instrumental	Karina Foster
($250 Each)	Victoria Chen	($250 Each)	Anthony Kim
	Frederick Chien		Serena Liu
	Sarah Deng		Sophia Slott
	Justin H. Lee		Caitlin Wang
	Ethan Song
	Zhenghua Xia	Senior Instrumental	Saeji Hong
	Adora Xiao	($500 Each)	Janice Hu
	Aili Zhang		Isabella McCormick
			Erica Wang
			Stacy Widyono

Honorable Mentions ($25 Each)
Division I Keyboard	Jason Liang
	Olivia Liang
	Jiaqi (Amber) Zhang
Division II Keyboard	Healin Lee
	Richard Lee
	Sara Sariowan
Division III Keyboard	Claire Lewis
	Eric Li
	Andrew Zhang
Junior Instrumental	Helen Wang
	Kayley Xu
	Ethan Zhou
Senior Instrumental	Kevin Hu
	Ivan Li
	Maria Wang

2021 Goodlin Virtual Festival Winners’ Repertoire

2021 Piano Duo Festival Acknowledgement

Posted on May 6, 2021May 6, 2021 by Dan Yu

This year’s Virtual Piano Duo Festival was held on Saturday, April 24th. We had 6 teaching studios and 18 duo teams participated in 4 categories for this event. Thanks to the participating teachers, Eunice Ahn, Irina Bessonova, Carol Ong-Chen, Isabelle Roux, Lori Vickers, and Lea Schmidt-Rogers for their dedicated work with their duo teams. Also, thanks to Yuko Maruyama, Chutaphin Yeager and Risa Schapiro for their help to run this Zoom event smoothly.

Category I: Ages 5 – 9

1st place: Mason Kwon & Ryan Kim
2nd place: Lillian Wang & Andrew Ong
3rd place: Blake Hawkinson & Alex Hawkinson

Honorable Mentions:
Elena Knight & Beau Miller
Aarya Iyer & Eva Lobo
Maya Tsubokawa & Kayla Tsubokawa

Category II: Ages 10 – 12

1st place: Allison Duong & Katelyn Duong
2nd place: Charity Chen & Yiyi He
3rd place: Gloria McKibben & Cloë Coco Reeves Abi-Nahed

Honorable Mentions:
Emma Bransi & Zoé Bransi
Kenzie Shaaban & Kaïla Knight
Chloe Lin & Claire Lin
Yiyi He & Ling Zhong
Sailee Caffrey & Lydia Grace Thompson
Sonali Caffrey & Nima Movaghar

Category III: Ages 13 – 15

1st place: Annalise Chang & Tyler Chang
2nd place: Peiran Liang & Wei-Shi Lai

Category IV: Ages 16 – high school

1st place: Joshua Sasaki & Brian Alba

2021 MTAC San Diego Branch Concerto Competition Results

Posted on March 1, 2021March 19, 2021 by Kay Etheridge

Congratulations to all students and their teachers who participated in this year’s MTAC San Diego Branch Concerto Competition! Each contestant submitted a video-recording of his/her concerto without accompaniment. Listed below are the students who will be awarded with a plaque or honorable mention ribbon in the near future. Thank you, as always, to our judges who took time from their professional commitments to create a more meaningful event for all contestants!

Dr. Kay Etheridge
University of San Diego
Chair, MTACSD Concerto Competition

            Piano Adjudicators
            Dr. Beverley Simms (Indiana University-Terre Haute)
            Dr. Baruch Meir (Arizona State University)
            Dr. Tina Chong (SDSU, San Diego Symphony)

            Winds Adjudicators
            Pam Vliek Martchev (University of San Diego)
            Frank Renk (San Diego Symphony)
            Beth Ross Buckley (Co-Artistic Director of Camarada)

            Strings Adjudicators
            Dr. Philip Tyler (Point Loma Nazarene University)
            Isaac Allen (SDSU; Hausmann Quartet)
            Alex Greenbaum (SDSU; Hausmann Quartet)

DIVISION I PIANO (through 11 yrs.)

1^st: Aaron Ye – Chopin Concerto in F Minor, Mvt III
2^nd: Benjamin Chuang – Handel Piano Concerto F Major

DIVISION II PIANO (12-14 yrs.)

1^st: Bradley Carpiuc – Prokofiev Concerto Op. 26, C Major, Mvt I
2^nd: Sonya Yasuda – Haydn Concerto in D Major, Mvt III
3^rd: Ella Xing – Kabalevsky Concerto No. 3, Mvt I
HM: Robin Moon – Beethoven Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Mvt I

DIVISION III PIANO (15-18 yrs.)

1^st: Zixuan Chen – Beethoven Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Mvt I
2^nd: Hahnlin Noonan – Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1 in Bb Major, Mvt I
3^rd: Rubi Choi – Mozart Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, Mvt I

DIVISION IV WINDS (through 18 yrs.)

1^st: Nithin Chilakapati – Lieberman Concerto for Piccolo
2^nd: Nathan Haghgoo – Carmen (Borne/Bizet)

DIVISION V STRINGS (through age 13)

1^st: Saejoon Hong – J.S.Bach Violin Concerto No. 2, Mvt I
2^nd: Caitlin Wang – Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor, Mvt I
3^rd: Alvin Wang – J.C.Bach Viola Concerto in C Minor
HM: Benjamin Luo – Bruch Violin Concerto in G minor, Mvt I

DIVISION VI STRINGS (14-18 yrs)

1^st: Stacy Widyono – Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, Mvt III
2^nd: Saeji Hong – Glazunov Violin Concerto, Mvt I
3^rd: Susan Lee – Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2, Mvt I
HM: Janice Hu – Sibelius Concerto, Mvt I

2020 Popular Music Festival Acknowledgement

Posted on December 13, 2020December 13, 2020 by Miriam Cole

To all 2020 Popular Music Festival Participants and Viewers:

Congratulations on being a part of the annual Popular Music Festival! The three virtual recitals displayed our students’ abilities while keeping the listeners entertained with syncopation, jazzy chords and show tunes. 39 students submitted their videos under the supervision of the following MTACSD teachers:

Irina Bessonova, Paul Burd, Miriam Cole, Jill Griffin, Jim Guerin, Philip Lim, Yu Carole Liu, Yuko Maruyama, Leslie Olson, Carol Ong-Chen, Anna Stal, Stuart Thurston, Chetan Tierra, Luba Ugorski, and Mei Yin

Without the expert handiwork and sacrificial time by our very own President, Yuko Maruyama, this event would not have happened. Thank you, Yuko, for this production as well as being one of the evaluators. We would also like to acknowledge and thank Taylor Smith for his expert comments. Also, many thanks goes to Risa Schapiro for helping out with the video coordination and preparation.

Gratefully,
Miriam Cole, Co-chair
Chutaphin Yeager, Co-chair

Sonata Results 11.15.20

Posted on November 15, 2020November 15, 2020 by Lori Bastien Vickers

Congratulations to all participants today!

For students who placed 1st, 2nd or 3rd, trophies will be available for pickup after November 15. More details will be emailed to the participating teachers.

Finalists ribbons and all comment sheets will be mailed to the teachers after November 15.

November 15, 2020
Sonata Contest Winners

Group 7: Agay
1. Tyler Chang / Sarah Deng / Daphnie Tseng
2. Joshua Yu
3. Katie Xu

Group 8: Kuhlau
1. Daniel S Park
2. David Yu
3. Amber Zhang

Group 9: Haydn
1. Addison K Lee
2. Adora Xiao
3. Jonathan Xue

Group 10: Mozart
1. Margaret Fan
2. Yilin Zhu
3. Benjamin Shimabukuro

Group 11: Beethoven
1. Eric Wang
2. Ethan Song
3. Cindy Cao