Six UW Students to Perform in Jacoby Competition Thursday

The University of Wyoming’s finest student musicians will compete for top honors in the annual Dorothy Jacoby Concerto Competition Thursday, March 7.

The concert is at 7:30 p.m. in the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts concert hall. Tickets cost $12 for the public, $8 for senior citizens and $6 for students. Tickets are available at the Performing Arts box office and the Wyoming Union information desk, by calling (307) 766-6666 or going online at www.uwyo.edu/finearts.

Six finalists were chosen during auditions in the fall and, in the final round, each student will perform as a soloist with the UW Symphony Orchestra (UWSO). A panel of judges will choose the competition’s winner and runner-up, who will receive cash prizes.

“This will be an incredibly varied program, with soloists from the strings, woodwinds, a singer and a pianist,” says Michael Griffith, UW’s director of orchestral activities. “Three are Wyoming high school graduates, one is from Denver, one is from Mexico by way of Texas, and one is from Taiwan. Three are undergraduates, and three are graduate students.”

This year’s soloists are:

-- Sophomore Sophia Helmkamp, a violinist from Denver, Colo., will play the first movement of the fourth violin concerto of Henri Vieuxtemps.

-- Graduate student Kathryn Jones, a soprano from Laramie, will sing “Song to the Moon” from Dvořák’s opera "Rusalka."

-- Sophomore Ross McIntosh, a violist from Laramie, will perform the opening movement of “Der Schwanendreher” by the German/American composer Paul Hindemith.

-- Senior Mikayla Peterson, a saxophonist from Rock Springs, will perform movement one of the alto sax concerto by the 20th century French composer Henri Tomasi.

-- Graduate student Lilian Schmidt, a flutist born in Monterrey, Mexico, and raised in Houston, Texas, will perform the “Fantasy on Themes from Bizet’s Carmen” by François Borne.

-- Graduate student Yi-Chen Sung, a pianist from Taiwan, will perform the first movement of the Third Piano Concerto of Beethoven.

While the judges deliberate, graduate student Antonia Soria, from Spain, will conduct the UWSO’s playing of “The Inspector General Overture” by Steven Rosenhaus.

UW President Laurie Nichols will announce the competition’s winners.

The concert is named after Dorothy Jacoby, a founding member of the UW Symphony Association and a longtime supporter of classical music in Laramie. Her sons, Peter and Michael, made a generous donation in honor of their late mother. That gift, along with contributions from many of Dorothy Jacoby’s friends, created the endowment for the prize awarded at the performance.