In our February 2011 issue, The WholeNote’s publisher David Perlman interviewed, for our cover story, the seven winners of the 2011 Toronto Sinfonietta Concerto Competition. These talented teenagers had a variety of musical backgrounds, but shared a common focus, drive and passion for performing classical music.
A year later, the aforementioned publisher found himself wondering what happens over the course of a typical year in the life of a musical whiz kid. So, right in the middle of my annual task of assembling profiles for this issue’s Summer Education special section (see pages 62–67), I was given the job of checking in with as many of these intrepid musicians as I could reach, to see what they have been up to and to get some insight into the paths they are now on. Almost exactly a year after these seven talents performed with the Toronto Sinfonietta, in the Isabel Bader Theatre concert that was the focus of last year’s story, I was able to reach five of the seven — Leslie Ashworth, Lily Chapnik, Daniel Hass, Nicole Li and Annie Zhou — and asked them just that!
An interesting fact right off the top: two of these young musicians, Hass and Li, were Toronto Sinfonietta competition winners again this year, an indication that the competition, and its attendant gala concert, remain a worthwhile springboard for young stars in the Toronto music world. (Rounding out the winners at this year’s February 18 Bader Theatre Gala were Sophia Anna Sjokolay, violin, Tony Yang, piano, and Andrew Seto, oboe.) Li and Hass were also winners of this year’s Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra Competition and Li was the grand prize winner of the National Finals of the Canadian Music Competition in Montreal.
Amongst the group’s other accomplishments this past year was an array of further competition successes, both within Canada and abroad. Pianist Zhou’s 2011 successes included an invitation by Festival Assisi nel Mondo, a UNESCO-sponsored international music festival, to perform in Italy (for the third time, no less!). Zhou went on to compete in the Minnesota International Piano-e-Competition, an event that required learning nearly two hours of repertoire and comprised four separate rounds! She made it into the finals to play with the Minnesota Orchestra and, at age 14, was the youngest prize winner at the competition. Violinist Ashworth was this year’s gold medalist for the “Passion of Music 2012” American Association for the Development of the Gifted and Talented competition, and also performed in the National Finals of the Canadian Music Competition.
For the five musicians I spoke to, their performances this past year haven’t been limited to gruelling competitions; performance opportunities, in recitals and concerts, have also proliferated. Li started 2011 playing solo violin at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City for the Forum for Human Settlements. She has also branched out into other areas of music, emceeing two musical soirees at the University of Toronto Schools. Hass has spent the year as principal cellist for the Young Artists’ Performance Academy Orchestra at the Royal Conservatory and the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, and has been playing in a piano trio and string octet. He will be performing with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in a debut concert later this year. Ashworth has been busy performing at children’s concerts and fundraisers around Toronto and will be travelling to New York to play March 10 at Carnegie Hall! And clarinettist Lily Chapnik, fresh from her first year of university, will perform a solo recital on May 16 here in Toronto, as the recipient of the Ben Steinberg Musical Legacy Award. The only thing that they haven’t done this year is stand still!
It’s funny how things come together sometimes. As I explained, my annual WholeNote investigation into summer music programmes across Canada and in the US was summarily interrupted for this story; but the fact that summer music education was therefore on my mind led rather serendipitously to my next question for these five musicians: just what are they planning to do this summer? Will they spend it adding fuel to the fire with practising or summer music programmes, or will they be taking a break to avoid musical overdose?
Here are their answers (some of them quite surprising):
NICOLE LI This summer, I will be volunteering at the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital every day for children with multiple complex health conditions. I will also be participating in a medical mission trip (like I did last summer) to El Salvador with the Global Health Outreach (a team of doctors, specialists, and students), to establish a makeshift health clinic where locals can receive free access to healthcare. This fall I will be heading to university.
ANNIE ZHOU I have been invited to participate in the Gina Bachauer International Young Artists Competition near the end of June, in Salt Lake City. I will be the only one in my group actually coming from Canada and one of the youngest participants. It will definitely be very tough for me. Then, in July, I will go to Italy for the fourth time. I will give a solo recital, and have my soloist debut with Cameristi del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. After that, I plan to give myself a short break, some time to relax and indulge in my favourite novels and discover new books. Then, I will need to start preparing for my upcoming performance with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra as a soloist in the concert “Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant,” one of the TSO’s Young People’s Concerts next season.
LILY CHAPNIK My summer is hugely busy with both musical and non-musical endeavours. My plans include my solo recital for the Ben Steinberg Award on May 16, and in June I will sit my Licentiate of the Royal School of Music (LRSM) practical exam, a full marked recital, in France. In July, I plan to go abroad for some kind of Jewish studies (yet undetermined), probably in Hebrew or Yiddish, and in August I will participate in Klez-Kanada, a week-long music course devoted to Jewish music. I will be working on music theory and practising throughout the summer.
DANIEL HASS Since the age of 13, I have participated every summer and every winter in the Perlman Music Program. In the summer it is a six-week session on Shelter Island, NY, and there I study with Ronald Leonard. The sessions include daily practice, chamber music, orchestra, choir and many other musical and social activities. I love being there and playing (not only music) with my friends, whom I get to see twice a year. So this coming summer I will be in New York doing the same programme.
LESLIE ASHWORTH During the summer I will be practising the violin for the Lipinski and Wieniawski International Young Musicians Competition in Lublin, Poland, in which I will be participating in September. I hope to attend the Perlman Music Program Summer Institute and/or the National Arts Centre Summer Institute in Ottawa. I applied for both of these programmes because I have heard such great, positive feedback from other musicians. I also will be playing my ARCT Performance Exam on the piano, which is my secondary instrument.
Finally, a personal confession: as a musician myself (although admittedly a lazy one), I am all too well acquainted with the required hours that must be spent on small details like tweaking of hand positions and embouchures, checking and re-checking intonation, working out fingerings and bowings — but never before have I had any kind of clear idea just how to fill the gaping void of summer as early on as February! But the factors involved in sculpting a formidable performance career multiply infinitely from all these basics. And for anyone as young as these Toronto Sinfonietta Concerto Competition winners, a life in music is a balancing act between school, extracurricular activities, family and friends. Maybe this is the link between these musicians: a knack for looking into the future to find new opportunities and goals toward which to work. Competitions provide motivation to strive for excellence. Performances expand an audience network. Summer programmes provide new inspiration and a broader musical scope at the time of year when Toronto’s heat leaves most of us feeling wilted. It’s the drive to constantly seek out opportunities for growth that brought these musicians to the Toronto Sinfonietta Concerto Competition, and it’s this drive that will take them into the summer and, past that, the great exciting beyond.
To whatever level of musicianship you aspire, perhaps one of the many summer opportunities in this issue of The WholeNote will do the same for you! All you have to do is turn the page.
