The Concerto Movement Competition's Five Young Musical Talents

Edited by L.A. Chung; reported by Laura Nguyen.
Five young musicians—one just 11—showcased their talents with the Palo Alto Philharmonic Orchestra Sunday for the organization's annual Family Concert. 

They performed because they came out on top of the Philharmonic's Concerto Movement Competition, which is open to musicians of high school age or younger.

This year's winners come from Peninsula and San Jose schools. Applicants are screened via recorded performances, and the finalists auditioned before a panel of judges. They included:

Cellist Elena Ariza, performing Prokofiev: Sinfonia Concertante, Op. 125, 2nd movement.

Pianist Alex Chien, performing Rachmaninoff: Concerto #3 for Piano in D minor, Op.30, 1st movement.

Cellist Songyi Chun, performing Bloch: Schelomo

Cellist Jeremy Tai, performing Dvorak: Concerto for Cello in B minor, Op. 104, 1st movement.

Violinist Alex Zhou, performing Saint-Saens: Havanaise

We thought Patch readers would like to know more about talented young people in our midst. 

Songyi Chun, Cellist

At age 17, Songyi, is the oldest of the group, and a senior at St. Francis High School. 

Her weekly Philharmonic rehearsals came on top of the rounds of Advanced Placement tests and the last couple weeks of school—with “senior-itis” in full swing. 

“I knew it conflicted with prom, but I still did it because I really love this piece and I really want to work with this group,” Songyi says.

She began her cello studies at age nine and is currently a student of Jonathan Koh. “In the beginning, my mom made me play. My mom is an organist.”  But she grew deeper in her music. She has performed as a soloist with the El Camino Youth Symphony, and is the winner of many competitions, including the Peninsula Orchestra Young Artist Solo Competition and the Korean Times Youth Music Competition. 

The cello is the reason that she says she wants to enter the field of communications, and incorporate music in that career. 

Through time spent at convalescent and senior homes, playing music with her mother and putting smiles on the faces of seniors, Songyi says she developed a love for speaking through music.

Songyi has jam sessions with her mom in church and is trying to be more spiritually connected. 

“It’s really fun with any church song,” she says. “I like music because of the ability to interpret things in different ways”

Songyi came to America from Korea in 2005 and that also had an impact on  her becoming who she is today. 

“I got bad scores and I thought it was okay because I was an immigrant. My mindset was wrong.” 

Now she says, “I want to be proud of what I’ve done.” The South Korean figure skater, Kim Yuna, who won the Olympic gold medal in 2010, inspires Songyi. 

“She represents Korea, and I want to do that through music or whatever I do in the future.” 


Elena Ariza, Cellist

She isn’t into the current trends, she loves classical music, and she took up riding a unicycle in the third grade. 

Elena Ariza, 14, is a freshman at the Menlo Upper School and has studied cello since the age of four, currently under Jonathan Koh at the San  Francisco Conservatory of Music. In 2012 she won first place in five different solo competitions. Last year she and her friends performed at charity concerts around the Bay Area and raised over $12,000 for victims of the March 2011  Japanese earthquake/tsunami.

In an interview, she expressed many different insights and opinions about life. Her favorite topic in school is physics and she says, “I see things differently in the world when I see how those things work.” 

She loves to draw Japanese comic-inspired illustrations and is big on working with her hands on do-it-yourself projects like wood-working.

She says she talks to her friends “mostly about techie stuff,” such as coding, art on tablets, and making digital art. 

She’d like to learn programming in the near future, she says, and is also interested in learning Adobe Photoshop. 

Her ability to play the cello and some piano started when she was younger and she says, “It’s not often for a musician to perform with an orchestra, so I feel honored because I’m grateful.”

She is inspired by the late Soviet cellist Daniel Shafran, who with Mstislav Rostropovich was one of the leading Russian cellists of their time. He died in 1998.

“His tone is so rich, it flows like velvet. The quality is not too high and not too low and it’s really deep.” 

She believes that “if we’re not inspired to go out and do what you love and what you’re passionate about, then you can’t achieve anything. You have to work. You have to challenge. You go out and achieve your goals.” 


Alex Chien, Piano

The 14-year-old freshman at Bellarmine College Preparatory School in San Jose has been playing piano since he was four years old.

Alex played one of the two most difficult movements by Rachmaninoff for the Palo Alto Philharmonic orchestra—the first movement of the Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 3 in D minor (op.30). 

"The Rach Three is considered one of the two most difficult works," Alex says. "It'd be astonishing if I could learn all three movements."

Among his many recent piano awards are first place in the 2012 Los Angeles International Liszt Competition and first place in the 2013 Marian Filice Piano Competition. He has been a soloist with many Bay Area orchestras, including the Peninsula Symphony, the Fremont Symphony Orchestra, and the California Youth Symphony. 

Yet Alex admits to having stage fright. “When I’m up there, there’s always this fear that the audience won’t like me. The judges are always judging to see who’s better, and I’ve heard scathing reviews before. They’re harsh.”

He’s inspired by his mother, who is a piano instructor and the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. Of course.


Alex Zhou, Violin

Alex Zhou is an 11-year-old with spikey, gelled up hair and a coy grin. He isn’t very tall but when he begins to play, the powerful energy packs a punch. His eagerness to be better and more skilled, he knows, is tempered by hours of practice. 

“It’s boring,” he says, “but worth it.”

He says, “I just want to not only be a great violinist, but make the audience happy and connect with them through music.” 

Alex wanted to play violin at a young age. Now in sixth grade at The King's Academy in Sunnyvale, he has been studying violin with Kwok-Ping Koo for the past five years. 

In 2012 he was a first-prize winner at the California Youth Symphony Concerto Competition and also won first place (Group A) in the Andrea Postacchini International Violin Competition in Italy. In October 2012 he appeared on the National Public Radio show "From the Top" with host Christopher O'Riley.  

Like many other 'tweeners, Alex is fond of social media and enjoys internet viral videos and memes. 

And much like boys his age, Alex can’t stand pop bands like One Direction, Justin Beiber, or Taylor Swift.

He’s enjoys math, science and sports such as swimming and tennis. Alex’s father, mother  and sister have been great influences towards getting him involved in music. 


Jeremy Tai, cellist

Jeremy has a special connection to the cello. When he plays or hears the cello, it’s almost as if he can see colors with every soulful vibration and bellow of the strings, he says.

The cello, the 14-year-old says, can produce different tones, and for him, colors, depending on the piece being played. He sees a “majestic red” when he plays his piece with the orchestra.

Jeremy has thrived on competitions, it seems. In 2012, the Monta Vista High School freshman he won first place at both the Music Teachers' National Association Performance Competition and the American Fine Arts Festival International Concerto Competition. When he was ten, he was selected to perform Bach's Cello Suite No.3 at the Junior Bach Festival in Berkeley. 

Through music, he says, “I definitely want to help people.” His grandmother on his mother’s side passed away from cancer so he hopes comfort cancer patients by touching their hearts with his music.

Like most of his peers, Jeremy has doubts about what the future holds for a career in music. He says “it’s really hard to market yourself and being in an orchestra, you don’t get much individuality.”

This summer, Jeremy is looking forward to returning to a seven-week intensive course at the Meadowmount School in New York, and reunite with old friend and learn from experienced professionals.

He says he is inspired by Johannes Gray, a fellow cellist who he met at the Meadowmount summer program, noting that “his tone is really warm” when he plays.

In his spare time, he plays ping pong because “it just clicks for me.”  

Music clicks with Jeremy the most. Maybe someday soon, audiences will  see and feel the colors that he sees.