2022 Duo Festival Results & Acknowledgement

This year’s Piano Duo Festival was presented in two successful recitals on Saturday, April 16th, 2022, in-person at Greene Music Recital Hall. We had 16 teams compete in 4 categories in the event. Thanks to the studios of Eunice Ahn, Eunji Bae, Carol Ong-Chen, Isabelle Roux and Luba Ugorski for their hard work preparing these teams. Thanks to our two wonderful judges, Steve Baker and Joanne Stohs. Also, thanks to Yuko Maruyama, Carol Ong-Chen, and Professor Victor Labenske’s two student volunteers for their help to make this festival happen. 

Category I: Ages 5 – 9 

1st place: Mason Kwon & Ryan Kim
2nd place: Elise Fu & William Fu
3rd place: Lilian Wang & Andrew Ong

Honorable Mentions: Jimin Lai & Lilian Wang, Evangeline Felker & Aarya lyer, and Julie Jeong & O-New Kim

Category II: Ages 10 – 12 

1st place: Charity Chen & Yiyi He
2nd place: Alex Hawkinson & Blake Hawkinson
3rd place: Allison Duong & Katelyn Duong

Honorable Mentions: Astrea Archibald & Euan Lee, and Yen-Cheng Wu & Vincent Wu

Category III: Ages 13 – 15 

1st place: Ella Xing & Sophie Hart 
2nd place: Yiyi He & Ling Zhong

Category IV: Ages 16 – high school 

1st place: Davina Zhu, Ruei-Chi Lai, Peiran Liang & Wei-Shi Lai

2022 Concerto Results & Acknowledgement

MTACSD CONCERTO COMPETITION with live auditions a success!

Congratulations to all participants and their teachers who entered the 2022 MTACSD Concerto Competition!  I am indebted to Jay Jay Lim, Lee Galloway and Greene Music for all of their support and assistance in making these auditions “live”; Dana Burnett, Chetan Tierra, and Jane Masur who generously helped me with audition monitoring duties, and some fabulous parents who assisted me as well!  Thank you, of course, to our adjudicators for their time and expertise. Their bios are at the end of this article.

Dr. Kay Etheridge
Chair, MTACSD Concerto Competition

2022 CONCERTO RESULTS

DIVISION I PIANO (up through 11 years old)
**1st place Alicia Jiang

DIVISION II PIANO (12-14 years old)
**1st place – Bradley Carpiuc
2nd place – Aaron Ye (alternate)
3rd place (tied) – Edward Kim and Robin Moon
HMs – Julian Cheng, Tyler Chang

DIVISION III PIANO (15-18 years old)
**1st place – Zixuan Chen
2nd place – Julian Woodman (alternate)
3rd place – Luke Qiao
HMs – Margaret Fan, Eric Ryu

DIVISION IV WINDS (through 18 years old)
**1st place – EMMA WARD, piccolo
2nd place – NATHAN HAGHGOO, flute
3rd place (tied) – DANIEL TRAN, bassoon and SERENA LIU, flute
HM – XILI HE, flute

DIVISION V STRINGS (through 12 years old)
**1st place – ANTHONY KIM, violin
2nd place – CAITLIN WANG, violin
3rd place (tied) – BEICHEN LI, violin and ELISHA KIM, violin
HM – CYNTHIA HUANG, cello

DIVISION VI STRINGS (14-18 years old)
**1st place – ELLIE LEE, violin
2nd place – CADEN JIANG, violin
3rd place – BRIANNA BAEK, violin
HM – DASHA ZERBONI, violin, ALVIN WANG, viola and CLAIRE KANG, violin

**UPCOMING PERFORMANCES WITH ORCHESTRA**

BRADLEY CARPIUC – Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Mvt I
ZIXUAN CHEN – Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Mvt III
EMMA WARD – Liebermann Concerto for piccolo, Andante
ELLIE LEE – Sibelius Concerto for violin, Mvt I
will be performing with
Mira Costa College Symphony Orchestra (Brandon Muresan, director)
Mira Costa College-Oceanside Concert Hall
Saturday, May 21 at 7:30 pm
Sunday, May 22 at 2:00 pm

ALICIA JIANG – Mozart Piano Concerto in D Major, K.537, Mvt III
ANTHONY KIM – Mozart Violin Concerto in G Major, No. 3, Mvt I
will be performing with
Greater San Diego Chamber Orchestra (Angela Yeung, director)
St Bart’s Episcopal Church, Poway
Friday, June 10 at 7:30 pm
Sunday, June 12 at 4:00 pm

2022 CONCERTO COMPETITION ADJUDICATORS

2021 Pop Festival Acknowledgement

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

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

2021 Chopin Festival Results & Acknowledgement

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

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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WinnersWinners
Division I KeyboardEmily ChenDivision III KeyboardZixuan Chen
($100 Each)Rien Chen($500 Each)Malvyn Lai
Chloe LiEmma Li
James RongLuke Qiao
Amy ZhangAidan Wahlmann
Eric Wang
Yilin Zhu
Division II KeyboardBradley CarpiucJunior InstrumentalKarina Foster
($250 Each)Victoria Chen($250 Each)Anthony Kim
Frederick ChienSerena Liu
Sarah DengSophia Slott
Justin H. LeeCaitlin Wang
Ethan Song
Zhenghua XiaSenior InstrumentalSaeji Hong
Adora Xiao($500 Each)Janice Hu
Aili ZhangIsabella McCormick
Erica Wang
Stacy Widyono
Honorable Mentions ($25 Each)
Division I KeyboardJason Liang
Olivia Liang
Jiaqi (Amber) Zhang
Division II KeyboardHealin Lee
Richard Lee
Sara Sariowan
Division III KeyboardClaire Lewis
Eric Li
Andrew Zhang
Junior InstrumentalHelen Wang
Kayley Xu
Ethan Zhou
Senior InstrumentalKevin Hu
Ivan Li
Maria Wang
2021 Goodlin Virtual Festival Winners’ Repertoire

2021 Piano Duo Festival Acknowledgement

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

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.)

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

DIVISION II PIANO (12-14 yrs.)

1st: Bradley Carpiuc – Prokofiev Concerto Op. 26, C Major, Mvt I
2nd: Sonya Yasuda – Haydn Concerto in D Major, Mvt III
3rd: 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.)

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

DIVISION IV WINDS (through 18 yrs.)

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

DIVISION V STRINGS (through age 13)

1st: Saejoon Hong – J.S.Bach Violin Concerto No. 2, Mvt I
2nd: Caitlin Wang – Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor, Mvt I
3rd: 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)

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

2020 Popular Music Festival Acknowledgement

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