{"id":2832,"date":"2020-07-15T19:25:59","date_gmt":"2020-07-15T23:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloomingtonsymphony.com\/?post_type=news&p=2832"},"modified":"2020-07-15T20:58:46","modified_gmt":"2020-07-16T00:58:46","slug":"bso-announces-winner-of-2020-youth-concerto-competition","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.bloomingtonsymphony.com\/staging\/6573\/news\/bso-announces-winner-of-2020-youth-concerto-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"BSO Announces Winner of 2020 Youth Concerto Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cooper Olsen – 2020 BSO YCC Winner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Each spring, the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra hosts an annual <\/span>Youth Concerto Competition<\/span><\/a>, which is open to middle and high school musicians in Monroe, Brown, Greene, Lawrence, Morgan, and Owen counties in Indiana. The awards offered include a scholarship as well as opportunities to perform as a soloist with the orchestra at some point during the concert season. One of the competition\u2019s most notable winners, back in 1975, was seven-year-old virtuoso violinist <\/span>Joshua Bell<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Each year, students work with their teachers to select and prepare a solo piece, which is typically performed live in front of a panel of BSO judges. This spring, however, the competition quickly transitioned online in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even with this interruption and the last-minute shifts required, the committee welcomed raw and unedited audition video recordings from fifteen young area musicians. On June 22 the judges named fourteen-year-old violinist <\/span>Cooper Olsen<\/b> as the 2020 Youth Concerto Competition winner<\/b>!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cooper, who performed Pablo de Sarasate\u2019s <\/span>Carmen Concert Fantasy, Op. 25<\/span><\/i> (1882), has been playing violin for ten years. He moved to Indiana with his family in 2018 and has since become fully-immersed in the many musical offerings available in the region. He studies violin with Professor <\/span>Mimi Zweig<\/span><\/a> in the <\/span>String Academy<\/span><\/a> at the <\/span>Indiana University Jacobs School of Music<\/span><\/a>. In addition to his weekly lessons, he has participated in chamber music coachings with <\/span>Susan Moses<\/span><\/a>, performed in a chamber orchestra led by <\/span>Brenda Brenner<\/span><\/a>, and was also invited to perform in masterclasses taught by <\/span>Mauricio Fuks<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Luke Hsu<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>Paul Kantor<\/span><\/a>. He has received multiple awards, including the 2019 Carmel Symphony Orchestra Competition and the junior division of the Muncie Symphony Orchestra Competition in 2020. He recently completed 8th grade at Tri-North Middle School.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The panel of judges this year included several musicians from the orchestra — Kit Boulding, leader; Carl Weinberg, principal clarinet; and Todd Davidson, principal trumpet; plus BSO Artistic Director and Conductor, Alejandro Go\u0301mez Guille\u0301n. Although the virtual nature of this year\u2019s contest presented an extra challenge for participants in that it is difficult to record oneself without accompaniment and outside of the context of a live audition or performance, the judges were thoroughly impressed with the quality of the submissions they received.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe number of high-caliber young musicians in our community is truly astounding,\u201d said Go\u0301mez Guille\u0301n, \u201cmaking it virtually impossible to choose just one \u2018winner.\u2019\u201d As such, the judges this year opted to award two honorable mentions to cellist Serge Kalinovsky, student of Susan Moses, who performed Victor Herbert\u2019s <\/span>Cello Concerto No. 2 in E minor<\/span><\/i>; and violinist Elson Koh, student of Mimi Zweig, who performed Tchaikovsky\u2019s <\/span>Violin Concerto in D Major<\/span><\/i>. Violist Sinead Whelan, student of Mimi Zweig and Esteban Hernandez-Parra, was also offered an opportunity to perform her Telemann <\/span>Concerto in G Major for Viola and Orchestra<\/span><\/i> on the new BSO <\/span>Conversations: Chamber Music at the FAR Center<\/span><\/i> series.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Each auditionee received a copy of the judges\u2019 comments and were offered a complimentary lesson with Go\u0301mez Guille\u0301n to discuss feedback and tips for performing in front of an orchestra. Many of the students have already taken advantage of this offer and the response on both sides has been very positive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Bloomington Symphony Orchestra is profoundly grateful for their long-standing partnership with <\/span>Baird Wealth Management<\/span><\/a> (formerly Hilliard Lyons), whose generous support over the past five plus years has made the Youth Concerto Competition possible. Many thanks, also, to Jeff Main, son of former long-time BSO cellist Steve Main, and husband to violinist Joy Main. Jeff is an integral part of our relationship with Baird and graciously delivers our awards each year during the final performance.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While the 2020-2021 season is still very much in flux, the BSO remains dedicated to the mission of promoting a lifelong appreciation of music through the performance of orchestral repertoire and outreach to the community in Bloomington and south-central Indiana. Although we\u2019re all still staying home, the orchestra is making plans to continue offering innovative programming and exploring creative solutions to #KeepTheMusicAlive in Bloomington and beyond. If you\u2019re interested to learn more, please consider signing up for our <\/span>newsletter<\/span><\/a> or following us on <\/span>Facebook<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Instagram<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each spring, the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra hosts an annual Youth Concerto Competition, which is open to middle and high school musicians in Monroe, Brown, Greene, Lawrence, Morgan, and Owen counties… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"tags":[],"news-category":[],"class_list":["post-2832","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomingtonsymphony.com\/staging\/6573\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/2832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomingtonsymphony.com\/staging\/6573\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomingtonsymphony.com\/staging\/6573\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomingtonsymphony.com\/staging\/6573\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomingtonsymphony.com\/staging\/6573\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomingtonsymphony.com\/staging\/6573\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/2832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2834,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomingtonsymphony.com\/staging\/6573\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/2832\/revisions\/2834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomingtonsymphony.com\/staging\/6573\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomingtonsymphony.com\/staging\/6573\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2832"},{"taxonomy":"news-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomingtonsymphony.com\/staging\/6573\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-category?post=2832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}