Pennsylvania Academy of Music students have swept two local concerto competitions and the school’s graduating seniors have secured spots next year in some of the nation’s top conservatories.
Two students have won both of Central Pennsylvania’s major concerto competitions. Violinist Dawon Suh and pianist Lanjiabao Ge are both enrolled in the joint degree program offered by Lancaster Mennonite High School and PAM. Both study in the Academy’s Certificate Program.
Dawon Suh, 17, a Lancaster Mennonite junior, won the 2010 Senior Instrumental Competition, sponsored by the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra and the Women’s Symphony Association. She performed the third movement of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major, op. 35 during the March 21 competition at the Roschel Performing Arts Center at Franklin & Marshall College. Suh, the daughter of Jun Sub Kim and Hyun Seok Suh, studies with Michael T. Jamanis, chair of violin at the Pennsylvania Academy of Music.
She has received a $4,000 scholarship to continue studying music from the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra and $300 from the Women’s Symphony Association. Suh will perform the third movement with the Lancaster Symphony on May 17 at J.P. McCaskey High School. She will perform the concerto’s first movement with the Pennsylvania Academy of Music’s Philharmonia Orchestra on May 14.
Pianist Lanjiabao Ge, 18, also a junior at Lancaster Mennonite and winner of several world piano competitions, won first place in the Hershey Symphony Orchestra’s 2010 Young Artist Competition held in Zug Recital Hall at Elizabethtown College, March 24, 2010. She performed the first movement of Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 3 in C Major, op. 26. Ge received a $1,000 scholarship and will be featured as a soloist in the Hershey Symphony’s 2010-2011 concert season. She is a student of Xun Pan at the Academy.
Graduating seniors in PAM’s Certificate Program will continue their studies at some of the nation’s top conservatories of music. Violinist Eva Dove, a graduate of the PA Cyber Charter School, was awarded a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Music. Violinist Gina DiCarlo, also graduating from the PA Cyber Charter School, will pursue further studies at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester. Pianist Xiaopei Xu of Linden Hall School for Girls has secured a spot at the New England Conservatory of Music for the 2010-11 school year.
Clarinetist Emily Milanak, a graduate of Lampeter-Strasburg High School, will attend the University of Maryland School of Music in the fall. Clarinetist Lauren Fox of Ephrata High School, will attend Shenandoah University to study pharmacy and music.
Violist Hannah Pedersen of Hempfield High School was accepted to the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University to further her music studies. Flutist Beth Anne Katz, of Manheim Township High School, will pursue engineering studies at Carnegie Mellon University.
Also graduating from the Certificate Program are pianist Aubrey Brown, a homeschooled student who has attended PAM for 15 years; and pianist Jeffrey Gao, a rising senior at Manheim Township High School.
Cellist Kathryn Westerlund, age 13, and a student of Sara Male at the Academy, has received a full scholarship to study this coming summer at the renowned Interlochen Arts Camp at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. She also was recently chosen to appear on National Public Radio’s prestigious syndicated program, From the Top, which will be taped at the Majestic Theatre in Gettysburg on June 18, 2010.
Located at 42 N. Prince Street in Lancaster, the Pennsylvania Academy of Music is one of only 12 autonomous pre-collegiate schools in the United States accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM).
Good students, decent teachers, bad school.