MYA Conservatory Announces Merit Scholarship Winners for 2015-16 Season

Midwest Young Artists Awards Merit Scholarships to Eight Area Students

Highwood, IL - Midwest Young Artists Conservatory (MYAC) is proud to announce merit scholarships ranging from $750 to $1,500 for eight area students. Scholarships are awarded on the basis of recommendations from the four judges of the December 28-29 Walgreens Concerto Competition, students’ placement in their orchestra seating and their involvement in MYAC music activities. In addition to cash awards, scholarship recipients are teamed with outstanding professional musicians who mentor them.

Violinists Robert Sanders, Niles North High School, and Masha Lakisova, Vernon Hills, received the Jeremy Black Merit Scholarship. Mr. Black is an MYAC alum and currently serves as the Concertmaster of the Grant Park Symphony as well as being a member of the Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra. Sofiya Kyrylyuk, violist from Huntley, received the Carrie Dennis Merit Scholarship, and Peter Dudek, violist from Lake Zurich High School, was awarded the Charles Pikler Merit Scholarship. Ms. Dennis is the an MYAC Alum and daughter of Allan and Karen Dennis as well as currently serving as Principal Violist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Mr. Pikler is the Principal Violist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and his daughter, Amy, was an MYAC alum. Yet another MYAC violist, Natalie Clarke, from Lake Forest Academy, was selected to receive the Ronit Solomonow Merit Scholarship, given in honor of Mrs. Solomonow, the wife of Rami Solomonow, an MYAC alum parent and faculty at DePaul University and MYAC as well as a former member of the Lyric Opera and Chicago Chamber Musicians. Evanston native Ezra Escobar, cello, earned the Rami Solomonow Merit Scholarship. For the first time this year MYAC Alum pianist Christopher Falzone was memorialized by awarding a scholarship in his name to Lake Forest High School student Kimberly Han.

Midwest Young Artists Conservatory is one of the premier youth music education and performance ensemble conservatories in the Midwest and features some of the finest young musicians in the country. The program offers exceptional training in jazz, choral, chamber and orchestral instruction. MYAC was founded in 1993 with a single orchestra, and now reaches over 900 students from 79 communities in the northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin area, with students ranging in age from 12 months through 12th grade. MYAC has nine youth orchestras, more than 60 chamber music ensembles, four choral groups, a jazz program that includes bands and combos, classes in music theory and composition, and an early childhood education program. Students have the opportunity to travel abroad and to perform in major venues throughout Chicago and around the world. Leading the nation in chamber music instruction, MYA Conservatory graduates are accepted at the most selective conservatories, universities and colleges in the country.