2018 DePauw Concerto Competition winners featured soloists Sunday

Five DePauw School of Music students — clarinetist Samuel Heichelbech ’21, tenor Blake Beckemeyer ’18, soprano Elise Daniells ’19, violinist Mei Fujisato ’18, and cellist Amelia Smerz ’20 — were selected to perform as soloists with the University Orchestra on Sunday, April 8 at 3 p.m. following the school’s annual Concerto Competition.

DePauw Photo/B. Suzanne Hassler

One of the most anticipated musical events of the season will be presented this Sunday, when the five winners of the annual DePauw Concerto Competition have the opportunity to step out from the ensemble and into the spotlight as featured soloist with the DePauw University Orchestra.

The popular concert, conducted by the orchestra’s music director Orcenith Smith, will be given at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 8 in Kresge Auditorium of DePauw’s Green Center for the Performing Arts.

This year’s outstanding student soloists, in order of appearance, are fifth-year senior, tenor Blake Beckmeyer from Pittsburgh, Pa., singing the recitative and aria from J.S. Bach’s Cantata BWV 65 “Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen”; senior violinist Mei Fujisato of Osaka, Japan, playing the first movement of the Sibelius Violin Concerto in D; second-year cellist Amelia Smerz from Downers Grove, Ill., performing Tchaikovsky’s “Pezzo Capriccioso”; and first-year clarinetist Sam Heichelbech from Columbus, Ind., playing the third movement of von Weber’s Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in F Minor. Soprano Elise Daniells, a junior from Phoenix, Ariz., will conclude Sunday’s program with the famous “Bell Song” from Léo Delibes’s rarely staged opera “Lakmé.”

The annual contest, held in collaboration with the DePauw School of Music, includes two rounds of competition in late February.

This year’s preliminary round, judged by DePauw music faculty, consisted of 27 entrants performing in the categories of string instruments, voice, woodwinds and percussion. Those musicians selected for the final round performed again two days later adjudicated by judges from outside DePauw. The students who scored the highest total points in the final round were selected as winners.

“We applaud the hard work of all of the students who participated in this year’s competition,” said Smith, music director for the University Orchestra and coordinator of the annual event, “and the continuing work of their teachers.”

General admission to the DePauw Concerto Winners’ Concert is $5. Tickets for seniors, children and all students, are free, thanks to season sponsors Judson and Joyce Green. To obtain tickets, visit music.depauw.edu or the venue’s box office Monday, Wednesday and Friday from noon to 4 p.m. and 90 minutes prior to the concert.