The Santa Barbara Music Club’s 43rd season of presenting admission-free chamber music concerts for the community is crowned with its annual June Scholarship Showcase Recitals featuring many of this season’s Santa Barbara Music Club scholarship award recipients.


The 2013 SBMC Scholarship Committee heard a record 59 students, between the ages of 8 and 27, audition on April 7 and 8. Open to talented instrumental and vocal students from Santa Barbara County, the competitive Santa Barbara Music Club Scholarship program presents aspiring students with the opportunity for financial support in their music studies as donated by our generous supporters. A total of $20,000 in scholarship funds were awarded to 32 music students. In addition, awardees also receive honorary SBMC membership for the 2013-2014 year.

In this final concert of the 2012-2013 Santa Barbara Music Club concert season, nine of the 2013 Scholarship Award recipients are to be presented in concert at 3 p.m. Saturday, June 8, at the Santa Barbara Central Library’s Faulkner Gallery, 40 E. Anapamu St. Admission is free.

Program
ELGAR — Concerto in E minor, Op. 85, 1st movement
Meredith Urschel, cello (Age 15)
Kacey Link, piano

VIVALDI — Concerto in A minor, RV 356, Adagio
Vincent Lertchareonyong, violin (Age 10)
Elaine Schott, piano

BACH — Prelude, from Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007
Emily Gilman, viola (Age 15)

MASSANET — Meditation, from Thaïs
Tiffany Meier, violin (Age 17)
Sio Tepper, piano

STAMITZ — Viola Concerto in D Major, Op. 1, I. Allegro (non troppo)
Ian Bankhead, viola (Age 17)
Pascal Solomon, piano

BRUCH — Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26,  I. Allegro moderato
Andrew Horak, violin (Age 17)
Pascal Salomon, piano

SZYMANOWSKI — Variations in B-flat minor, Op. 3
Michael Sikich (Age 19)

MALCOLM ARNOLD — Fantasy for Solo Trombone, Op. 101
Michael Tyler Dolin, trombone (Age 20)

ROGER QUILTER — My Life’s Delight, from Seven Elizabethan Lyrics, Op. 12
C.L. AMBROSE THOMAS — Me voici dans son boudoir, from Mignon
Katelyn Neumann, lyric mezzo soprano (Age 28)
Farley Neumann, piano

BERNSTEIN — Sonata (1942), II. Andantino — Vivace a leggiero
Grace Sedgwick, clarinet (Age 21)
Renée Hamaty, piano

This final concert of the 2012-2013 Santa Barbara Music Club concert season opens with the mysterious grandness of the opening movement of Edward Elgar’s Concerto in E minor, Op. 85 as performed by 15-year-old cellist Meredith Urschel, with the collaborative support of UC Santa Barbara doctoral studies pianist Kacey Link. A Dos Pueblos High School sophomore, Meredith has attended the National Cello Institute for five summers, and been selected for the last two for the Music Academy of the West’s summer MERIT program. She is a student of Ryan Sweeney, of the Pasadena Symphony.

Vincent Lertchareonyong, 10, was recognized by the 2013 Scholarship Committee for his piano and violin abilities. He will perform the Adagio from Vivaldi’s Concerto in A minor, RV 356, accompanied by his violin teacher, Elaine Schott. His piano studies are led by UCSB’s Charles Asche. A Washington Elementary School student who also enjoys tennis and chess, this is Vincent’s second SBMC Scholarship Award.

Violist Emily Gilman, 15, will next present the Prelude movement from one of Bach’s beloved solo works, the Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007.  A student of Valerie Malvinni, Emily is a sophomore at Dos Pueblos High where she is Co-Principal Viola of the orchestra and serves as Assistant Principal Viola for the Santa Barbara Youth Symphony — and aspires to be a music teacher!

From the violin studio of Nina Bodnar, Tiffany Meier, 17, will perform another beloved string work, the Meditation, from the opera “Thaïs” by Jules Massenet. A student at Olive Grove Charter School, Tiffany has participated in the MTAC Certificate of Merit program (completing up to Level VII) and other Santa Barbara MTAC branch Festivals and Showcases, as well as being chosen several times for the Music Academy of the West’s MERIT program. She is presently active with the Music & Arts Conservatory program’s Virtuoso Strings. Tiffany will be supported today by pianist Sio Tepper, also a graduate of the Music & Arts Conservatory program.

Seventeen-year-old violist Ian Bankhead of Carpinteria will present the first moment of Karl Stamitz’s Viola Concerto in D Major, accompanied by UCSB doctoral studies pianist Pascal Solomon. A Laguna Blanca School student, Ian studies privately with Helen Callus, UCSB’s Professor of Viola, and additional chamber music training with the Music & Arts Conservatory. Ian is a member of the Santa Barbara Youth Symphony, for which he recently won the concerto competition (and will be appearing as soloist in November).

The lyrically romantic Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26, (I. Allegro moderato) of Max Bruch will be performed next by seasoned concerto performer, violinist Andrew Horak, with piano collaborator Pascal Solomon. Age 17, Andrew is a Laguna Blanca student and studies privately with Nina Bodnar. He is a member of the Santa Barbara Youth Symphony, studies chamber music in the Music & Arts Conservatory program, and has appeared in 2010 and 2012 on their Young Soloists concert at The Granada Theatre.

Another graduate of the Music & Arts Conservatory program and the piano studio of Lana Bodnar, pianist Michael Sikich, 19, returns from his first year at Indiana University’s School of Music and studies with Edward Auer to perform Karol Szymanowski’s Variations in B-flat minor, Op. 3. A mutiple year winner (four times) of the Music & Arts Conservatory’s Young Soloist program, MTAC Festival Showcase appearances, completion of the Certificate of Merit program and recipient of scholarship prizes from numerous other local foundations, Sikich also has an affinity for jazz performance and aspires to a professional career as a pianist collaborator and collegiate professor.

Trombonist Michael Tyler Dolin, 20, receives SBMC scholarship award support for the second year in a row, and will perform the personality filled work, Fantasy for Solo Trombone by the English composer Malcolm Arnold. A San Marcos High School graduate and former Santa Barbara Youth Symphony member and concerto winner, Dolin began his collegiate studies at Santa Barbara City College; he is now enrolled at UCLA, where he pursues an undergraduate trombone performance degree, guided by James Miller, associate principal trombone of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Hailing from Buellton, lyric mezzo-soprano Katelyn Neumann, 28, will perform two art songs for the audience: Roger Quilter’s My Life’s Delight, from Seven Elizabethan Lyrics, Op. 12; and Ambrose Thomas’ Me voici dans son boudoir, from his opera, Mignon. She’ll be accompanied by her father, Farley Neumann. From music education beginnings at Santa Barbara’s Washington School up through Santa Barbara High School and SBCC, Neumann has recently completed her Master’s in Vocal Performance at Cal-State University at Northridge and is embarking on those next steps for establishing her professional singing career.

Closing the Showcase II concert in celebration of this year’s scholarship award recipients is clarinetist Grace Sedgwick with the second movement of Leonard Bernstein’s Clarinet Sonata, with piano support by Renée Hamaty. Sedgwick is entering her senior year at UCLA where she studies with Gary Gray, former principal clarinet of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. A San Marcos High graduate, Sedgwick was a six-year member of the Santa Barbara Youth Symphony (including concerto soloist), a scholarship recipient from numberous local and national organizations, and active in a variety of teaching and performing realms in the UCLA area and Santa Barbara.

A valued cultural resource in the community since 1969, the Santa Barbara Music Club’s bi-monthly chamber music concerts are presented to the community free of charge and feature performing members of the Santa Barbara Music Club, which encompass advanced amateurs, as well as professional musicians, excelling collegiate students (including SBMC Scholarship Winners), and collegiate faculty members (Westmont College, UCSB, among others), generally from Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

Click here for more information about the Santa Barbara Music Club, or email info@sbmusicclub.org, or call 805.687.5537.

— Marilyn Gilbert is the Santa Barbara Music Club’s publicist.