SCBF Emerging Artists 2019

For seventeen years running, Santa Cruz Baroque Festival has held a youth chamber music contest, and for six, we have held a concert showcasing the winners. The competition, held this year on March 23, has traditionally welcomed competitors from a four-county area. Contestants are in middle or high school, and under 18 years of age. Dean Silvers has generously donated the prize money to encourage young artists.

Chamber music can create a sonic world as fully developed and powerful as that of an orchestra, while allowing for the individuality of each musician to express itself and leave a personal mark on the performance. As an audience member, much of its delight stems from watching the interplay between the instruments. Composers write musical lines that respond to each other, and in performance the musicians bounce musical gestures off each other, taking us along on a journey through harmonies and rhythms, melodies and emotions. In holding this contest, it has been an inspiration to watch young musicians commanding such challenging and complex music with skill and spirit, and we couldn’t be prouder to present the winners of this year’s competition in concert under our aegis.

Our Honorable Mentions consist of three groups playing different works by Beethoven, with a preponderance of wind instruments. Beethoven’s Wind Octet will blow through with its unruly vitality and singable melodies. Bassoons and horns bounce along, accompany snappy oboe, flute, and clarinet lines. Then three expert clarinetists will twist and turn through Beethoven’s Clarinet Trio opus 87, exploring different key areas, and articulating the piece’s graceful playfulness. Thirdly we have Beethoven’s opus 11, which is a “Clarinet Trio” of an entirely different conception, counterbalancing a single clarinet with cello, woven together in conversation by the piano.

Our Third Prize is shared between two equally ranked Santa Cruz County groups. A violin quartet performs the Telemann concerto in D, trading musical ideas and creating sensitive articulations with the bow, showing off the expressivity of the violin. Also a flute and piano duo performs a sonata by C.P.E. Bach. This composition fits together like a brilliant puzzle expressing passionate feeling subsumed behind a gallant presentation. Second Prize went to the performers of Mendelssohn’s piano trio op. 49. Open-heartedly, at turns sad and sensual, this piece of full-on romantic expression celebrates the interplay between cello, violin, and piano. Melodies spin out in abundance, each responding and building upon the last.

First Prize goes to another romantic piano trio, this time by Dvo?ak, his opus 90 number 4 in e minor. A work of brooding intensity, this piece takes us on a ride through dark timbres and key areas, interspersed with cheerful episodes. Groundbreaking in its musical style, this late-Romantic landmark is one of Dvorak’s most famous pieces – a fact that will not seem surprising when you hear them performed by the winners of this year’s Chamber Music Competition: Valley Christian High School students Angela Tsang, Angel Sun, and Megan Chi, expertly coached by Dr. Scott Homer, VCHS Conservatory Dean of Music and Strings instructor.

Admission is Free, $10 donation encouraged.