The best-attended, most exciting concerts the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra sponsors don’t star grown-up orchestra professionals. They star eager student musicians.
Applications are now open for the VSO’s 25th annual Young Artists Competitions. Students who are 18 or younger as of Jan. 1, 2019, and who reside in Washington and Oregon, are eligible to compete in the following three categories: piano, strings and brass/woodwinds/percussion.
Audition CDs featuring pieces that are pre-approved and received at the VSO office by the deadline, 4 p.m. Dec. 4, will be judged blindly by area musicians.
The three top finishers in each category will compete for scholarship prizes on Jan. 13 in front of an audience at Trinity Lutheran Church in Vancouver. The first-place finisher in each category will go on to guest star with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Maestro Salvador Brotons, on April 13 and 14 at Skyview High School’s concert hall.