The Wellesley Symphony Orchestra Young Soloist Competition
In
November each year, the Wellesley Symphony Orchestra conducts its Young Soloist
Competition. The Competition is generously hosted by the Dana School of Music,
whose Music Building on 103 Grove Street in Wellesley provides a friendly
atmosphere and well-appointed rooms for musicians and their accompanists to
warm up and to perform for the judges. (The audition room has two pianos.) A
date for the 2012 competition will be posted by Labor Day.
Each
participant selects a concerto movement suitable to be performed with the WSO
at our March family concert. Auditions should be about 10 minutes long, and
each participant is responsible for making arrangements with an accompanist. In
addition to performing with the orchestra the following March, the winner receives
a $500 award.
Applications
are available on our website around Labor Day each year, and from Dianne Mahany
at d.mahany@verizon.net. Click here to see the 2011 application. (It is important to
apply early; for the past several years, all slots have been filled almost 2
weeks before the published application deadline, and a waiting list has been
put in place.)
We
have a wonderful group of participants each year, including about 35 young
musicians up to the age of 18 (the youngest in recent memory was 8 years old).
We welcome all orchestral instrumentalists and pianists to our competition. (It
is always very difficult for the four judges—including Max Hobart, our Music
Director, and David Archibald, our Assistant Conductor—to make a selection. We
have occasionally chosen a runner-up.)
2011 / 2012 Competition
Results
The
2011/2012 competition was held on November 5, 2011. This year we had both a winner and a “special achiever.”
Our
competition’s winner is a wonderful young cellist named Sasha Scolnik-Brower.
We
gave a Special Achievement Award to Yugo Okutomo, a terrific 8-year-old
violinist.
Both boys will play with the
orchestra at our March 11, 2012 concert.
Click here to see their photographs and read their
biographies.
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(NOTE: Applications
for the WSO Young Soloist Competition are posted here around Labor Day each
year. If you have any questions about the competition at any time, please
contact Dianne Mahany by email at d.mahany@verizon.net or by telephone at 978-443-5212.)