Ithaca College

Congratulations to Weiyan Li, piano; Keegan Sheehy, percussion; and Mengfei Xu, piano, for winning the 2013 Ithaca College School of Music Concerto Competition.

Held annually, the concerto competition is open to Ithaca College students enrolled in private lessons with a School of Music faculty member during the semester of the competition.

This year, 12 students were chosen to represent their instrument area in preliminary rounds of the competition and proceeded to the finals, where they performed for a faculty jury on Sunday, January 27.

The three winners will perform as soloists with the Ithaca College Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jeffery Meyer, on Sunday, March 3, 2013 at 4:00 p.m. in Ford Hall. Li will perform Ravel's "Piano Concerto in G Major"; Xu will perform Prokofiev's "Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Op. 26"; and Sheehy will perform "Dichotomous Figures," a piece written by current IC composition student R. Aaron Walters. 

"This is very rare and extraordinary" said Deborah Martin, Piano Professor and Co-chair of Performance Studies. "Extraordinary in that both the student wrote it, and that the piece stood up to the likes of Ravel, Barber, Prokofiev, etc.!"

Congratulations to Li, Xu and Sheehy, and to their studio teachers Charis Dimaras, piano, and Gordon Stout, percussion.

The School of Music would also like to recognize the students who were chosen as Concerto Competition Finalists:

Christopher Pena; clarinet
Joshua Condon; piano
Elizabeth Schmitt; oboe
Stephen Gorgone; viola
Edward Steenstra; bass trombone
Caitlin Phillips; flute
Robert Oldroyd; horn
Mengchun Yang; soprano
Yan Pan; cello