At the Sonata Festival in November, students competed for the honor of being a featured soloist with the Honors Youth Orchestra. We’re proud to announce this year’s winner and runner up of the Concerto Competition. They will be featured (along with guest violinist Dr. Nancy Bargerstock from Appalachian State University) during the performance of Vivaldi’s Concerto for 3 Violins in F Major RV 551 II: Allegro.
Winner – Chloe Harvel
Chloe Amelia Harvel, 12, native of Kingsport, TN and daughter of Joey and Elaine Harvel attended Providence Academy through the fifth grade. While at Providence, she was chosen to represent the school in many capacities such as the ACSI Math Olympics team member, Monday Club of Johnson City Poetry Competition honorable mention award for her poem about a gypsy violinist entitled “Her Gypsy Way”, grade level representative at the annual PA Speech Meet, and presenter at the Christian Storytelling Festival. These diverse experiences have directly impacted her musical interests. At present, she is home schooled in order to provide more time to pursue her passion… the violin.
At the age of three, she began a relentless campaign to convenience her parents to start violin lessons. From the age of four, an adventure began which has changed her non-musical family’s life forever. Jane MacMorran was her violin instructor, while studying at the Suzuki Talent Education of Appalachia which shaped her in such a way never dreamed possible. Her many years of attendance at the Virginia Suzuki Institute and Prelude Chamber Music Camp have filled her with much irreplaceable knowledge. As of this academic year, Chloe has started violin instruction with Annie Wolaver Dupre of Nashville, TN. For two years, she has studied theory/piano with Catherine McGlasson of Kingsport, TN. She has been given the opportunity to receive instruction in master classes from Benedict Goodfriend, Brian Lewis, Stephen Clapp, Masao Kawasaki, and most recently Achim Gerber at the ACMA Sonata Festival.
Fiddling competitions gave Chloe early performance opportunities, which provided her with numerous awards. She has been a member of the auditioned Symphony of the Mountains Youth Orchestra since the age of seven and is currently serving as assistant concert master. The Women’s Symphony Committee of the SOTM has named her as a summer music camp scholarship recipient for the past four years and master class participant. Chloe’s participation in the ACMA Sonata Festival has given her the opportunity to receive acknowledgements including Outstanding Soloist for the years 2007 – 2010, Outstanding Ensemble for 2007 and 2008, and the first place award for the 2010 Concerto Competition. In 2008, Chloe was selected as first place co-winner of the Bristol Music Club Competition and in 2009 received the first place award for her age division at the Music Academy of North Carolina Violin Competition. For the past two summers, she has been selected as a featured violinist for the final gala performance at the Fine Arts Summer Academy in Nashville. She is also a member of the East Tennessee Children’s Choir and was recently selected as a member of the 2011 OAKE National Youth Choir, which will take place this coming March in Minneapolis, MN.
Music has allowed Chloe to gladly serve her community at area churches, weddings, hospitals, nursing homes, and even funeral services. She has also represented the Symphony of the Mountains at various regional functions. Chloe’s plans for the future include participation as violinist for a newly formed chamber group in Nashville and hopefully numerous new adventures that only music could provide.
Runner Up – Cameron Lugo
Cameron Lugo, age 13, son of Ralph and Dawn Lugo, is in the eighth grade and lives in Jonesborough, TN. He began studying violin in 2006 at the age of nine with Tim Barrett at the Academy of Strings in Johnson City, TN, where he has been playing with the Ambassador Strings advanced ensemble since 2008. He currently serves as Co-Assistant Concertmaster of the Symphony of the Mountains Youth Orchestra conducted by Ross Bader, in Kingsport, TN. He served as concertmaster of the Tri-Cities Christian Bands Orchestra in 2009-2010.
Cameron began studying piano at the age of seven with Laura Strickland of Salt Lake City, UT. He has studied with Carlene Eastridge in Johnson City, TN and is currently a student of Ivy Blair of Elizabethton, TN. Spending much of his spare time working on his own musical compositions, Cameron studies music theory and composition privately with Robert Jeter at the East Tennessee State University Department of Music. He is enjoying singing this year with the East Tennessee Children’s Choir and the Da Capo select ensemble, directed by Jane DeLoach Morison.
Cameron is a winner of the 2011 Knoxville Symphony Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition and will be performing as soloist the first movement of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor with the Knoxville Symphony Youth Orchestra in their February, 2011 concert. Cameron is a three-time winner of the Outstanding Violin Soloist Award in the Appalachian Classical Music Association’s (ACMA) Sonata Classics Festival, a two-time winner in both the composition and piano categories, and the second place winner in the 2010 ACMA concerto competition. Cameron was a 2009 AMTA Tennessee State finalist in piano. He was a first place co-winner at the Bristol Music Clubs Scholarship Auditions in the Junior Division in 2009 for violin, and received an honorable mention for piano in that same year. This year he was honored to win the MTNA junior level composition competition for the state of Tennessee as well as the Honorable Mention award in the Southern Division with his Prelude and Fugue in D minor, written for string quartet. Cameron won first place in the NFMC Junior Composer’s Competition for the state of Tennessee with his Quartet in C minor. The composition has proceeded to the Southern Division competition which is to be decided in spring 2011. Cameron has been selected as a featured soloist at the ACMA Regional Honors Orchestra Spectacular to be held in March 2011 at Milligan College, conducted by Dr. John Ross of Appalachian State University.
Cameron participated in the 2010 University of Tennessee Violin Festival, in which he was chosen by audition to play in a master class taught by Miroslav Hristov of the University of Tennessee. He has also played in master classes for teachers Linda Fiore, Terry Durbin, James Hutchins, Achim Gerber, Lois Akins and Betsy Fee. In the summer of 2010, he spent a week of intensive study of chamber music with the Fry Street Quartet, the quartet-in-residence at Utah State University in Logan, UT.
Cameron is the oldest of five siblings, all of whom are home educated. Three of his siblings also play violin and piano with one who plays cello as well. They enjoy playing together at any opportunity, and especially enjoy sharing their music at nursing homes and in church.
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