Sammamish Symphony Orchestra

2007 Youth Concerto Competition

The 2007 competition presented some unique difficulties for everyone involved. The competition was originally scheduled for January 13th. A severe snow and ice storm forced Eastlake High School to close for several days and we were unable to hold the competition on that date. We tried to reschedule the competition and were not able to find a date that would work for the venue, competitors, accompanists, judges and staff.

For this year only, we used an alternate method of judging the competition. Our three judges were given recordings of the twelve finalists and based on those recordings, three winners were selected. We were pleased to have a very distinguished judging panel: Melia Watrous, Michael Jinsoo Lim and R. Joseph Scott.

Congratulations to the winners of the 2007 Competition:

First Place	Julian Schwarz, cello	Dvorak: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra
Second Place	Rhiannon Bronstein, flute	Nielsen: Concerto for Flute and Orchestra
Third Place	Nazila Dabestani, piano	Grieg: Piano Concerto in A minor

The first-place winner, Julian Schwarz, performed as a featured soloist with the Sammamish Symphony on Sunday, April 15th, 2007.