AMI Winners Concert: May 22, 2016

Some of the Chicago area’s best young violin talent performed on May 1 in the 2016 AMI Violin Competition. To be considered for prize placement, contestants were required to perform a piece from memory in its entirety. The competition included young musicians ages 5-18. AMI congratulates all who participated in the competition and took advantage of the opportunity to hone their musicianship. The 2016 winners and laureates are as follows:

2016 Winners:

• 1st Prize – $400 – Joshua Brown
• 2nd Prize – $125 – Anya Brumfiled
• 3rd Prize – $75 – Sophie Lekas

2016 Laureates:

• Justin Lee
• Kaylee Kim
• Linda Wang

AMI’s first-prize winner, Joshua Brown, studies violin with Almita and Roland Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago’s (MIC) Academy as the Alexandra C. and John D. Nichols Laureate Fellow. Joshua has won first place in many competitions, including the MIC Young Artist Competition, the Luminarts Competition, the Sejong Music Competition, the Asian American International Music Competition, the Alexander and Buono International String Competition, the Confucius Competition, the DePaul Concerto Festival, the Robert Stanger Young Artist Competition and the Rockville Competition for Piano and Strings. He has received scholarships from the American Opera Society of Chicago, the Highland Park Music Club and the Luminarts Cultural Foundation; was recently named a 2016 National YoungArts Winner; and was featured last month on NPR’s nationally syndicated program “From the Top." He has soloed with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Oistrach Symphony Orchestra, the Ars Viva Symphony Orchestra, the Northbrook Symphony Orchestra, the Waukegan Symphony Orchestra, the New North Shore Orchestra and the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra. This past summer, Joshua was awarded both second place and the Audience Award in the 2015 Cooper International Violin Competition and had the honor of playing the Shostakovich Violin Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra under the baton of Jahja Ling.

The 2016 AMI Violin Competition – Memorial Winners Concert will be held on May 22nd at 2 p.m. at AMI’s Clarendon Hills Campus (Christ Lutheran Church). Come enjoy performances from Joshua and other talented young violinists from the Chicago area.

American Music Institute (http://amimusic.org) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization with campuses in Clarendon Hills and St. Charles. We are dedicated to enriching our community by offering access to high quality music education programs through merit and financial need scholarships. AMI programs and classes are for all levels, ages, instruments, and styles of music.

For more information about AMI, please visit www.amimusic.org or call Executive Director Remus Badea at 630.850.8505.