February 2024 Concert Featured Two Winners as Soloists

The LAS concert on February 10, 2024, featured the two winners of the 51st annual Competition for Young Musicians.

Connor Roham played the 3rd movement of Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor by Chopin.

Cara Wang played the 1st and 2nd movements of the Cello Concerto in E Minor by Elgar.

General Information
Annual Competition for Young Musicians

Every fall, the Livermore-Amador Symphony Association conducts its Competition for Young Musicians. This year marks the 52nd annual competition. It will be held on the afternoon of October 13, 2024, in the Mertes Center for the Arts at Las Positas College. The winners will perform as soloists with the Symphony at the Bankhead Theater on February 15, 2025, and will be awarded $500.00. The competition is open to instrumentalists and vocalists who reside in Alameda County, Contra Costa County, the City of Tracy, or the community of Mountain House, California. The maximum age at the time of the February 15, 2025, concert is 19.

Applications for the 2024 competition will be accepted starting on September 22, 2024. The deadline is September 29, 2024.  Note: the application window for this year’s competition has closed. Music is to be chosen from the standard repertoire for orchestra. The selection, one movement of a concerto or a comparable work, is to be between 5 and 15 minutes in length.

Those accepted to compete are expected to perform in person on Sunday afternoon, October 13, 2024, before a panel of judges, including the Music Director. Contestants must provide their own accompanists. Each student who participates will receive a written evaluation. Intonation, tone quality, technique, style/interpretation, and memorization will be taken into consideration.

Winners, as soloists, perform the same music with which they competed. Previous winners of this competition may reapply after an intervening year. However, anyone who has performed two times as a soloist with the Symphony cannot be considered as a contestant.

The following compositions are not to be chosen. They were performed by the Symphony in 2023–2024 or will be performed by LAS in 2024–2025.

Cello: Concerto in E Minor — Elgar
Piano: Concerto No. 1 in E Minor — Chopin
Violin: Concerto in D Major - Tchaikovsky
Violin: Butterfly Lovers’ Violin Concerto — He Zhanhao and Chen Gang
Voice: Becoming a Redwood — Laitman
Voice: Song to the Moon, from Rusalka — Dvořák
 

Application

Applicants must submit a non-refundable fee of $25.00, a completed application form, and, for preliminary screening, a recording of themselves playing the solo to be performed at their audition.

Application Form:
The application form should be filled out and submitted by mail or email.

Video: Please post a recording video to YouTube and send a link via email to competition@livermoreamadorsymphony.org. Recordings for non-pianists require a piano accompaniment. For piano recordings, accompaniment is not essential. All applicants will be notified of the outcome of the preliminary screening.

Fee of $25:
The “Competition Fee” button below will open the LAS PayPal donations site, where you may pay the $25 by credit or debit card. Since this PayPal site is also used for regular donations to the Symphony, to avoid confusion, please include a note that this is a Competition Application Fee, with the name of the competitor. Or, write a check for $25 payable to Livermore-Amador Symphony Association and mail it to Livermore-Amador Symphony, c/o 744 Polaris Way, Livermore CA 94550. (Make checks payable to Livermore-Amador Symphony Association.) Please include your address and contact information.

 
If you have any questions, you may contact Competition Committee Chair Anne Badders (competition@livermoreamadorsymphony.org).

Past Winners

See a list of past winners and the pieces they played, from the 1973–74 through 2023–24 seasons.

See photos of winners from the 2011–12 through 2022–23 seasons.

 

© Livermore-Amador Symphony Association