Riverhead High School Cellist Chosen as Soloist

Photo courtesy of Riverhead Central School District

Riverhead High School ninth grader Yasmine Kocan, who began playing the cello as a sixth grader in the District’s summer music lessons program, has been chosen as the featured high school student performer in Stony Brook University Orchestra’s Annual Family Concert entitled “Musical Excursions and Travels”.

The concert is scheduled for Tuesday, March 3, 2015, at 7:30 p.m., at the Staller Center for the Arts.

Tickets are $5 and can be purchased by calling 631-632-ARTS or at the Staller Center Box Office.

“I started Yasmine on cello the summer of 2011 during the Pulaski Summer Music Program,” Riverhead High School orchestra director Marisa Macchio said. “I could tell from the start that she was gifted and had an exceptional ear for music. She started studying privately a few years later, and since then, has blossomed into a very talented young cellist. I am very proud of Yasmine’s accomplishments thus far and am excited for what the future holds for her.”

After a number of what Yasmine calls “life changing experiences”, including an opportunity to participate in an open rehearsal with Itzhak Perlman given through East End Arts, she was hooked.

“I still don’t know who recommended me,” Yasmine said. “It was a life changing experience. I got to meet some of his students and I realized that I wanted to be like them. I learned that those students practice 4 hours a day. And that is what it takes to be a professional. I guess after this experience I decided that this is what I want to do.”

Not long after that experience, Yasmine enrolled in SBU’s pre-college program on Saturdays.

Each year the University conducts a competition among this group to see who the featured soloist will be at the SBU orchestra’s annual family concert.

Yasmine was the overall winner of the 2014 Pre-College Concerto Competition. She will play Elgar’s Cello Concerto (1st movement).

“I am extremely honored to have won the pre-college concerto competition,” she said. “Many of the 14 students are my friends. I have a lot of respect for their talent. They are amazing musicians.”

She will be performing Elgar Cello Concerto in E Minor.

“It is a beautiful piece of music. It has a lot of emotion,” Yasmine said. “I hope to do my best to express all of its beauty when I play. “