Concerto Competition winners announced
Annual music competition features student performers
Pictured left to right: Charles Gately,
Ali Rose Hotz, and Jacob Hill
Each year the Department of Music sponsors the Concerto Competition, providing an opportunity for students to perform a concerto or similar work with a large ensemble. The competition occurs late in the fall semester and is open to all students in the department.
This year's winners of the 2017-18 Concerto Competition are:
Charles Gately, trumpet – sophomore, music performance major
Jacob Hill, oboe – graduate student in music performance
Ali Rose Hotz, soprano – senior, music performance major
with honorable mentions awarded to:
Henry Hutchinson, piano
Kang Ning Yong, piano
Jubilee Chen, violin
T.J. Knight, marimba
One of the highlights of the competition is the Havighurst Center Special Award, awarded to a student winner who plays a composition by a Russian or Soviet composer. This year’s winner of the Havighurst Center Special Award is Charles Gately, performing the Trumpet Concerto by Armenian composer Alexander Arutiunian.
Jacob Hill’s selected piece was the virtuosic “Oboe Concerto in one Movement” by Eugene Goossens, both a composer and a prominent conductor who worked with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra from 1931 until 1946.
Vocalist Ali Hotz performed famous opera and zarzuela arias in three different languages: Italian, French and Spanish. Selections included, Me llaman la primorosa from El Barbaro de Sevilla by Giménez and Nieto; Tornami a vagheggiar from Alcina by George Frederic Handel; and Chacun le sait from Le fille du régiment by Gaetano Donizetti.
Professor and Director of Orchestra Studies, Ricardo Averbach, is director of the competition. Ryan Reynolds, visiting Assistant Professor of Bassoon at Miami, served as moderator for this year's event.
A panel of three external adjudicators from the region included Michael Chertock, Paul Stanbery and Patrick Reynolds.
The winners of the competition will perform with the Miami University Symphony Orchestra at their last concert in spring, 2018.