Composition Contest Winners

In 2008 BYSO established the C. Keith Birkenfeld Composition Contest with funds from the C. Keith Birkenfeld Memorial Trust in conjunction with the Seattle Foundation. This annual contest's purpose is to inspire students and showcase young talent by offering them the challenge of creating an origional composition for orchestral instruments that is suitable for professional level performance, and for the benefit of each division of BYSO, which we know spans various skill levels and age groups.

Mr. Birkenfeld was known in Bellevue for his community involvement as an educator at Bellevue High School for over 20 years, and administrator with Bellevue Public Schools, and as a board member of the Bellevue Art Museum. Mr. Birkenfeld established the Trust at the Seattle Foundation before he passed away in September of 2005. Among Mr. Birkenfeld's known attributes -educator, world traveler, and philanthropist -was his great appreciation of classical music.

This year's competition judges were Samuel Jones, of the Young Composers Workshop of Seattle Symphony, for the Youth Symphony; Alan Futterman of Music Academy Northwest and former BYSO music director for the Sinfonia division; John Paul Lowrie for the Dubut String Orchestra; and Paul Taub of Cornish School of the Arts for the Flute Orchestra. The winning composers worked with the judges to fine-tune their compositions and met with BYSO students to talk about their experience in the creative process.

This Years winners are:
Kyle Hanks: "Rhapsody" for Youth Symphony
Jason Wang: "March Overture" for Sinfonia
Ethan Paik Marzban: "The Chase" for Debut String Orchestra
Brendan McMullen: "Hortus Pulcher" for Flute Orchestra

You can see these amazing pieces performed live during our final Showcases of the season on 5/17 for "The Chase" and 5/24 for "Hortus Pulcher," "March Overture," and "Rhapsody" at First Presbyterian Church of Bellevue. 7:00pm. Visit our website for more details.

Right in Our Own Backyard

An article in the Seattle Times reminded us that there really are a lot of enriching, unique music performances and experiences in the Seattle area. Sometimes it can be easy to forget that the UW offers, not only, interesting student performances, but brings in world renowned guest artists and performers, often at very affordable ticekt prices.



You might want to bookmark http://www.artsuw.org/ so the next time you are making family plans for the weekend you can see what's happening right in our own backyard.