Here are the winners of the 5th Annual MTAC San Diego Branch Chopin Festival.

Division I
Elijah Robins, 1st Place
Chloe Li, 2nd Place
Astrea Archibald, 3rd Place
Yvonne Gao, Honorable Mention
Landon Han, Honorable Mention
Ruiya Xia, Honorable Mention
Isabella Yang, Honorable Mention

Division II
Aaron Ye, 1st Place
Daniel S. Park, 2nd Place
Veronica Xu, 3rd Place
Serafin Gimutao, Honorable Mention
Sonya Yasuda, Honorable Mention
Amber Zhang, Honorable Mention

Division III
Emma Erickson, 1st Place
Andrew Zhang, 2nd Place
Nathan Dai, 3rd Place

Congratulations to all the winners and their teachers: Irina Bendetsky, Jessie Chang, Lynn Chen, Sun Yung Cho, Emi Clements, Eleanor Hum, Jeeyoon Kim, Kathy Kim, Inessa Litvin, Yu Carole Liu, Viktor Shekhtman, and Jia Sheng Zhou.

We look forward to seeing you next year!

Thank you for participating in the 2023 H. B. Goodlin Scholarship Competition! We had 74 students from 37 teaching studios competing in five divisions. The auditions were adjudicated by 9 Preliminary Round judges and 6 Finals judges. After the Preliminary Round Audition in a video submission format, 28 Finalists participated in the in-person Finals Audition at Cuyamaca College Theatre on Saturday, May 20.

The Instrumental Division Finals auditions were held in the morning and the Keyboard Division Finals auditions in the afternoon. Afterwards, the students and teachers were treated to the piano masterclass given by Dr. Tina Chong. We also had Mr. Doug Schmidt, a special guest from the Schmidt Foundation, give an inspiring speech to our students at the Keyboard Division Award Presentation.

Thank you to the San Diego Foundation, the William E. Schmidt Foundation and other generous donors for their continued support for this event. Thank you to Cuyamaca College for hosting the Saturday Finals Competition in their beautiful Theatre.

I would like to acknowledge the following participating studios for their work in educating our music students in San Diego County: Ning An, Ruslan Biryukov, Chi-Yuan Chen, Anna Cho, Sun Yung Cho, Emi Clements, Hernan Constantino, Peter Dayeh, Karen Follingstad, David Garrett, Vladimir Goltsman, Eleanor Hum, Emily Hung, Dmitry Kirichenko, Philip Lim, Inessa Litvin, Yu Carole Liu, Rinna Livshin, Alexander Mirolyan, Jared Nepute, Alexander Palamidis, Wesley Precourt, Akiko Sakakida, Anna Savvas, Xiao-yan Sui, Irina Tseitlin, Michael Tseitlin, Pasha Tseitlin, Luba Ugorski, Sophie Webber, Angela Wu, Elena Yarritu, Dawn Yocum, Dan Yu, Tingting Zhang, and Jia Sheng Zhou.

Our event could not have been possible without all the work done by our volunteers. In particular, I would like to thank the current and the past members of the MTAC San Diego Board of Directors, and the members of the H. B. Goodlin Foundation Board. Special thanks to Dr. J. Mitzi Kolar, Jaclyn Summers and Lea Schmidt-Rogers for their perpetual support and guidance for the Goodlin Competition.

Thank you to the 2023 Goodlin Competition Finals Volunteers: Sun Yung Cho, Connie Gale, Brian Goral, Eleanor Hum, Ed Litvin, Marj Osgood, Lea Schmidt-Rogers, Risa Schapiro, Jaclyn Summers, Anita Weedmark, Elena Yarritu and Chutaphin Yeager.

We were privileged to have these distinguished judges for this year’s competition: Isaac Allen, Lori Bell, Dr. Ching-Ming Cheng, Dr. Tina Chong, Dr. Shun-Lin Chou, Michael Gerdes, Alex Greenbaum, Heidi Lee Kim, Pam Monroe, Dmitry Rachmanov, Dr. Sanaz Rezai, Dr. Taylor Smith, Mark Teplitsky, Joseph Valent and Bryan Verhoye. Link to judges bios

The results are posted below. We hope to see you again next year!

2023 Goodlin Scholarship Competition Results

2023 Goodlin Finalist Repertoire

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!