Registration for the 2023 Popular Music Festival is now open! Teachers must register their students online. Please visit the Popular Music Festival page for more details and to access the registration form. Login is required to access the registration form.
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
| Group 1A-Bastien, A First Sonatina, I | Group 1B-Bastien, Silver Sonatina, I |
| 1st Place – Selena Liu | 1st Place – Nayi Liu |
| 2nd Place – Tie: Dylan Zhang, Allison Cai | 2nd Place – George Chang |
| 3rd Place – Indy Jun-Yong-Ni | 3rd Place – Claire Yang |
| Group 2A-Bastien, Sapphire Blue, I | Group 2B-Gillock, Sonatina in G, I |
| 1st Place – Victor Shen | 1st Place – Lucas Zhang |
| 2nd Place – Elise Fu | 2nd Place – Ruitong Xia |
| 3rd Place – Evangeline Felker | 3rd Place – Tie: Jovanny Fernandez, Sophia Wang |
| Group 3A-Bastien, Sunset Sonatina, III | Group 3B-Gillock, Sonatina, II |
| 1st Place – William Fu | 1st Place – Clarie Chen |
| 2nd Place – Daren Ren | 2nd Place – Zihan Ni |
| 3rd Place – Zi Xiang Lin | 3rd Place – Tara Liu |
| Group 4A-Mier, Starry Night Sonatina, III | Group 4B-Alexander, Sonatina in F, III |
| 1st Place – Tie: Amanda Tseng, Kadmus Ma | 1st Place – Nathan Chou |
| 2nd Place – Angela Cai | 2nd Place – Christopher Whitacre |
| 3rd Place – Maggie Pacleb | 3rd Place – Jovan Lim |
| Group 5A-Benda, Sonatina in A minor | Group 5B-Clementi, Sonatina in F, Op. 36, No. 4, I |
| 1st Place – Celine Karyodisa | 1st Place – Elena Chen |
| 2nd Place – Coye Miao | 2nd Place – Chi-ching Chan |
| 3rd Place – Henry Sun | 3rd Place – Tie: Aiden Park, Yvonne Gao |
| Group 6A-Lynes, Sonatina No. 2 in G, III | Group 6B-Olson, Sonatina in Colors, Red, IV |
| 1st Place – Ruiya Xia | 1st Place – Claire Lim |
| 2nd Place – Terrence Zhou | 2nd Place – Mako Diana Nakao |
| 3rd Place – Seojin Lee | 3rd Place – Amy Fang |
| Group 7-Agay, Sonatina No. 3, I | Group 8-Khachaturian, Sonatina (1959) for Piano, I |
| 1st Place – Amy Zhang | 1st Place – Kanon Endo |
| 2nd Place – Andrew Jonathan Lee | 2nd Place – Darren Hack |
| 3rd Place – Alethia Li | 3rd Place – Fiona Zhang |
| Group 9-Mozart, Sonata in Bb Major, K. 570, III | Group 10-Beethoven, Sonata in C minor, Op. 10, No. 1, I |
| 1st Place – James Rong | 1st Place – Amber Zhang |
| 2nd Place – Tie: Sara Sariowan, Tyler Chang | 2nd Place – Bryce Liu |
| 3rd Place – Izel Garcia-Hale | 3rd Place – Sarah Deng |
| Group 11-Beethoven, Sonata in G, Op. 14, No. 2, III | |
| 1st Place – Tie: Edison Choy, Daniel Park, Edward Kim | |
| 2nd Place – Margaret Fan | |
| 3rd Place – Adam Gates |
The Sonata preliminary audition times have been emailed to all participating teachers. Please contact your teacher to find out your audition time if you are a participating student.
The Sonata Finalist Lists will be posted on the MTACSD Facebook page.
Chopin Festival was LIVE this year on June 18, 2022. It was a beautiful Saturday to host our most talented young musicians in our community at the gorgeous First Presbyterian Church of San Diego sanctuary. The continuous high quality of music making from our wonderful 37 performers really inspired us all.
Thank you to the participating teachers who continue to educate and motivate your students:
Eunji Bae, Irina Bendetsky, Magdolna Bornemisza, Jessie Chang, Sun Yung Cho, Chaling Huynh, Anthony Do-Hoon Kim, Shuang Li, Inessa Litvin, Yu Carole Liu, Rinna Livshin, Vera Lukomsky, Viktor Shekhtman, Elaine Tokman, Gill Tsai, Mei Yin, Dan Yu, Jia Sheng Zhou
We were so very honored to have three prestigious judges: Ethan Yi Dong, Wojciech Kocyan, and Kevin Kwan Loucks. They have selected the top three winners in three divisions. Winners were presented the crystal trophies at the courtyard reception immediately after the judges’ deliberation. The judges valuable comments have been emailed to all participating teachers.
Congratulations to the winners of the 2022 Chopin Festival:
Division I
James Rong, 1st Place
Amy Zhang, 2nd Place
Rien Chen, 3rd Place
Division II
Richard Lee, 1st Place
Frederick Chien, 2nd Place
Sarah Deng, 3rd Place
Division III
Sabrina Li, 1st Place
Nathan Dai, 2nd Place
Eric Li, 3rd Place
I look forward to seeing you all next year!
Jessie Chang
MTACSD Chopin Festival Chair
Thank you to all participants, teachers, volunteers, friends and families for making the 2022 H. B. Goodlin Scholarship Competition a successful event celebrating the excellence in music education in San Diego County. We had 75 students from 38 teaching studios participating in five divisions. The auditions were adjudicated by 9 Preliminary judges and 6 Finals judges.
The Preliminary Round Audition was conducted as a video submission event. 26 Finalists were selected by the Preliminary judges, and 25 Finalists participated in the Finals Audition, which was held in person at Cuyamaca College Theatre on Saturday, May 21. This was our first in-person Goodlin Scholarship event since the beginning of the pandemic. Thank you to all Finalists, teachers, volunteers and parents for following the Covid safety rules and making this Finals event run smoothly.
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: Eunice Ahn, Ning An, Ruslan Biryukov, Dana Burnett, Wanping Chen, Sun Yung Cho, Hernan Constantino, Angelina Hardy, Eleanor Hum, Xiao Liang, Philip Lim, April Lin, Inessa Litvin, Yu Carole Liu, Rinna Livshin, Pam Martchev, Brenda Martin, George Maxman, Alexander Mirolyan, Gaiana Mndoian, Alexander Palamidis, Cho-Hyun Park, Viktor Shekhtman, Xiao-yan Sui, Elaine Tokman, Peichun Tsai, Irina Tseitlin, Michael Tseitlin, Pasha Tseitlin, Anna Vasilyeva, Yun-Yin Wu, Elena Yarritu, Mei Yin, Dawn Yokum, Dan Yu, Tingting Zhang, Yao Zhao and Jia Zhou.
Our Finals event could not have been possible without all the work done by the volunteers, which included many music teachers and their students and families. 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 for her help and guidance, and Lea Schmidt-Rogers for always “being there” for us.
Thank you to the 2022 Goodlin Competition Finals Volunteers: Yaumo Chan, Eugene Cho, Laura Cho, Sun Yung Cho, Connie Gale, Brian Goral, Eleanor Hum, Ed Litvin, Yuko Maruyama, Michiko Parseghian, Lea Schmidt-Rogers, Risa Schapiro, Jaclyn Summers, Chutaphin Yeager, and Lu Yuan.
We were privileged to have these distinguished judges for this year’s competition: Lori Bell, Dr. Ching-Ming Cheng, Dr. Tina Chong, Angela Choong, Dr. Karen Follingstad, Dr. Andrea Garreffa, Heidi Lee Kim, Edith Orloff, Dr. Sanaz Rezai, Craig Richey, Dr. Taylor Smith, Mark Teplitsky, Dr. Philip Tyler, Teri Watson, and Dr. Angela Yeung. Link to Judges’ Bios
| Division | ID | Name | Award | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Division I Keyboard | 1st Place | 5 | Amy Zhang | $500 | |
| 2nd Place | 6 | Steven Chen | $200 | ||
| 3rd Place | 1 | Isabella Yang | $100 | ||
| HM | 3 | Chloe Li | $50 | ||
| Finalist | 2 | James Rong | $25 | ||
| Finalist | 4 | Keanu Zeller | $25 | ||
| Division II Keyboard | 1st Place | 11 | Emily Chen | $850 | |
| 2nd Place | 7 | Victoria Chen | $500 | ||
| 3rd Place | 9 | Richard Lee | $200 | ||
| HM | 10 | Healin Lee | $50 | ||
| Finalist | 8 | Melody Chen | $25 | ||
| Division III Keyboard | 1st Place | 14 | Ethan Song | $2,000 | Chet & June Schmidt Award |
| 2nd Place | 17 | Malvyn Lai | $850 | ||
| 3rd Place | 16 | Andrew Zhang | $500 | ||
| HM | 13 | Yilin Zhu | $50 | ||
| Finalist | 12 | Sabrina Li | $25 | ||
| Finalist | 15 | Kyle Tianshi | $25 | ||
| Junior Instrumental | 1st Place | 20 | Elisha Kim | $850 | |
| 2nd Place | 19 | Jasmine Chan | $500 | ||
| 3rd Place | 18 | Kayley Xu | $200 | ||
| HM | 21 | Ethan Zhou | $50 | ||
| Finalist | - | Caitlin Wang | $25 | ||
| Senior Instrumental | 1st Place | 25 | Erica Wang | $2,000 | Chet & June Schmidt Award |
| 2nd Place | 22 | Caden Jiang | $850 | ||
| 3rd Place | 24 | Nathan Haghgoo | $500 | ||
| HM | 23 | Lea Parseghian | $50 |
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
Results of winners have now been entered into the scjbf.org website. Teachers may now login to the scjbf.org site to view the results.
Thank you for a successful and delightful program today! Congratulations to all of our talented and dedicated students and teachers!
| Bach Festival Winners | ||
| Chloe Li | Emily Chen | Celine Lau |
| Thomas Tong | Steven Chen | Andy Liu |
| Alyssa Ju | Ella Xing | Sara Sariowan |
| Richard Lee | Keanu Zeller | Adora Xiao |
| Juhyeok Lee | Amy Zhang | Jonathan Xue |
| Eric Li | Seungbeom Baek | Dorien Zhang |
| Haowen Sun | Emma Cao | Aili Zhang |
| Benny Chen | Anna Cao | Aidan Zhao |
| Daniel S Park | Frederick Chien | Risha Guha |
| Bach Festival Honorable Mentions | ||
| Jeffrey Ding | ||
| Clara Yang | ||
| Grace Xu | ||
| Iris Cheng | ||
| Addison K Lee |
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
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.
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 |
