In mid-February the 19th annual U.S. Open Music Competition (USOMC) was held in Oakland. The USOMC, with over 900 participants (mostly pianists), is one of the largest music competitions in the country. Students traveled from as far as China to compete in different levels and categories. Several students from Harker participated, winning a number of accolades. Unless noted, all categories are for the piano.
Bobby Bloomquist, grade 4, third place, treasury of romantic – junior (ruby), “Waltz in A Minor, Op. 124, #4,” by Schumann; Andy Semenza, grade 5, first place, showcase piano duet & ensemble – intermediate, sketches: “Musketeers and Toreadors,” by Gavrillin. Semenza and his partner, Andy Sheng (who does not attend Harker) were selected as one of the outstanding gold medalists of 2011 at the Prize Winners’ Concert. Semenza also won first place, treasury of contemporary – pre-senior (diamond), “Prelude #24, Op. 34,” by Shostakovich. Marcus Chen, grade 5, fourth place, treasury of romantic – junior (diamond), “Andante con moto (untitled) in F Major #26, Op. 68,” by Schumann.
Jonathan Dai, grade 7, third place, showcase piano duet & ensemble – intermediate, “Slavonic Dance #2 in E Minor, Op. 72,” by Dvorak.
Helen Wu, grade 8, second place, showcase violin concerto (ruby), “Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64, third movement,” by Mendelssohn; Andrew Jin, grade 8, third place treasury of contemporary – pre-senior (diamond), “Prelude #10, Op. 34,” by Shostakovich. Billy Bloomquist, grade 8, fourth place, open solo 5B, “Sonata in G Major Hob XVI:27 Presto, third movement,” by Haydn.
Vikram Sundar, grade 9, second place, showcase piano solo – intermediate (opal), “Impromptu #1 in Ab Major, Op. 29,” by Chopin and “Sonata #2 in F Major (Allegro), Op.10,” by Beethoven. Sundar also took third place in open concerto – intermediate, “Concerto #12 K.414 in A Major (Allegro),” by Mozart. Paulomi Bhattacharya, grade 10, second place, treasury of classical – advanced, “Sonata in C, Op.13, Grave-molto allegro – first movement,” by Beethoven.
Albert Wu, grade 11, second place, showcase piano solo – senior (sapphire), “Sonata #23 in F Minor, Op. 57, first movement,” by Beethoven and “Prelude in C Major, BWV870″ by J.S. Bach. Wu also took second place in treasury of romantic – advanced (diamond), “Polonaise in Ab Major, Op.53,” by Chopin.
The list of Harker participants was provided to us by a generous parent. Winners are not listed on the USOMC site by school and we apologize if anyone has been left off this list. If your child participated in the 2011 USOMC, please send information to news@harker.org and we will gladly add it to the article.
Upper school vocalists and the ensemble Camerata represented Harker extremely well at the California Music Educators Association (CMEA) Solo and Ensemble Festival on March 12 at San Jose State University.
Students are required to prepare a classical piece to present to a judge, who listens to them and offers critique and advice, much like a one-on-one master class. The judge fills out a comprehensive score sheet with comments which the students keep, and assigns soloists and groups a rank: superior, excellent, good, fair or needs improvement. At the judge’s discretion, a command performance ranking may be added on to a superior, indicating truly outstanding work.
Harker’s musicians were fortunate in their judge this year, a retired voice teacher from the Sacramento area, whose thoughtful insights and gentle humor gave them tremendous confidence and useful tips. For Harker’s Conservatory students, the CMEA festivals are really about these encounters with experts, rather than the scores they receive, and several singers noted how useful the judge’s comments were.
Command performance superiors were awarded to Michelle Holt and Vrinda Goel, grade 12; Katie Marcus Reker, grade 11; and Nina Sabharwal, grade 10. Ashima Agrawal, grade 11, received a superior. Others participating in the festival were seniors Mallika Dhaliwal and Shireen Moshkelani, and juniors Govi Dasu, Sebastian Herscher, Alex Najibi, Bridget Nixon and Lucy Xu. Members of Camerata are Timothy Chou, Mallika Dhaliwal, Ram Seeni, grade 12; Govi Dasu, Sebastian Herscher, grade 11; Cristina Jerney, Nina Sabharwal, Indu Seeni, Pooja Shah, Wendy Shwe, Alice Tsui and Lydia Werthen, grade 10.
Students Wendy Shwe, grade 10 and Diane Villadsen, grade 12, and faculty members Susan Nace and Catherine Snider provided piano accompaniment for the singers.
Gail Nakano ’06 recently auditioned for the San Francisco Symphony Chorus and to her delight has been accepted for the 2010-11 season. Nakano just earned a chemistry degree from Vassar College where she was very involved in the choral and opera programs. For the past two years she has been with the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers. Singing in the San Francisco chorus has been a dream of hers since seeing them as a child.
“The audition went fairly well,” said Nakano. “The sight reading got a little tough for the a cappella pieces, but my piece and the excerpts in the second part … went a lot better I think. They haven’t figured out which pieces I’ll be in yet, but I’m so happy!”
In addition, Nakano earned a chorus spot in the West Bay Opera’s fall production of “La Forza Del Destino.”
Ashvin Swaminathan, Gr. 9, recently earned a spot in the violin section of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, one of the top groups of its kind in the country. The young musicians will have the privilege of training with members of the symphony, and will perform four concerts with the orchestra.
Harker students who have been members of the SFSYO include violinist Catherine Chiu, ’08, cellist Tiffany Yu, ’08, and cellist Julia Shim, ’10.
Congratulations to rising seniors James Seifert and John Ammatuna who were recognized for their performances as Marius (Outstanding Supporting Actor) and Enjolras (Outstanding Featured Performer), respectively, in “Les Misérables” in San Jose Stage Company’s inaugural High School Top Honors recognition program for area high schools. The awards were presented in June at an awards ceremony held at the California Theater in San Jose.
For many years Harker’s musical theater department participated in an awards program for Bay Area high schools sponsored by American Musical Theatre of San Jose (AMTSJ), the company that nominated Harker for participation in the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. When AMTSJ went defunct, San Jose Stage Company took up the honors mantle and created the High School Top Honors program, sending adjudicators to 15 local high schools this year.
In related news, Harker has once again been invited to perform at the Fringe, and will be performing this year’s musical, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” at the 2011 Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.
Two instrumental groups from the lower school, one of which included members from Gr. 6, won silver awards at the Heritage Music Festival. The event took place this past weekend at Foothill Community College.
Heritage festivals are held around the country for various skill levels. At this one, Harker entered non-high school-aged groups for the first time. Louis Hoffman, lower school music director, was pleased with the results. “They did so well,” he said.
Awards were given by three judges based on a standard rather than in competition with other groups, meaning each group had to meet certain expectations, Hoffman explained. Of the approximately 20 groups at the competition, Harker was the only one with elementary school students. The rest featured high schoolers, as well as one junior high group, which made the awards that much more difficult to earn.
About 25 students from Gr. 2-6 were in the jazz ensemble and about 27 from Gr. 2-5 were in the orchestra. Following their performances, a judge spoke to the groups, giving critiques and compliments in a sort of mini clinic, Hoffman said. Each student received a pin to commemorate the results and the school received two plaques to display on campus.
Hoffmann gave credit to Laura Lang-Ree, chair of the performing arts department, and to Chris Florio, upper school orchestra director, for their efforts in building the lower and middle school programs.
“The students’ behavior was so good,” said Hoffman. “They acted wonderfully. I was so proud of them.”
The upper school orchestra has been named the top scoring orchestra of the Los Angeles Festival of Gold. The orchestra is in southern California today – April 19 — and has the honor of performing in Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in the Orange County Performing Arts Center tonight for the entire group of festival participants and families. The judges and festival director requested the orchestra play the Elgar Cello Concerto, featuring Julia Shim, Gr. 12, for the encore performance. “The kids are thrilled, as this is greatest honor our young orchestra has ever achieved,” said Chris Florio, orchestra director.
Katherine Paseman, Gr. 8, has been selected as a member of this year’s Organization of American Kodaly Educators’ (OAKE) National Youth Choir. The OAKE National Youth Choir is one of three honor choirs that perform at the annual OAKE national conference. This year’s conference will be held in Dallas, Texas, in March. Those selected must audition via a recording, then a selection committee from OAKE goes through recordings from throughout the nation and selects about 150 members for this special ensemble. Paseman is the only middle school student selected from Crystal Choir to attend this Honor Youth Choir.
The Harker Orchestra, led by director Chris Florio, traveled to New York in early April to compete in the National Orchestra Cup at Lincoln Center’s newly renovated Alice Tully Hall (see Harker News, Nov., 2008, page 1), where they earned a prestigious award and had a stellar time!
“Our students had a spectacular performance that truly captivated the judges and audience,” said Florio. “Although we were not awarded grand champions, we were given the festival staff award (the Forte Award), which is ‘awarded for positive attitude and best exemplifying the spirit of America and performance excellence.’ The festival staff stated that this award is very close to their hearts and not one that is given out lightly.”
Florio noted that another panel judge, who just happens to be a Saratoga High School graduate, “congratulated our orchestra on how high our performance level has become in such a short period of existence as an upper school. He was also very impressed that a high school orchestra could handle our difficult repertoire at such a high level.” Congrats to the 60+ members of the orchestra for an outstanding performance!