Playing with passion and poise belying his 15 years, Alan Tilley won the Traverse Symphony Orchestra's 2006 Young Artist Competition.
Held Thursday evening at the Traverse City Opera House, Tilley played Max Bruch's Violin Concerto in G Minor, 1st movement and sufficiently impressed the five judges to take top honors. Two other young musicians, Sarah Paquet, 15, and Janelle Clouse, 17, were finalists in the annual competition, the winner of which plays with the orchestra during their 2007-2007 season opening concerts in September.
"We just loved everyone's performance, really just absolutely fantastic," said Kevin Rhodes, music director of the symphony and one of the judges, before announcing the winner.
Tilley, a freshman at Interlochen Arts Academy, has been studying violin for seven years, including six years with Paul Sonner, concertmaster of the orchestra and an instructor at Interlochen. Last year, he took second place in the Young Artists Competition, writing the credenza, or soloist highlight, for his concerto. In addition, in 2005 he was awarded the Traverse City Music Booster and Grand Traverse Musicale Scholarship.
Terming his performing style "extroverted and emotional," Tilley chose the difficult Bruch piece — which requires great endurance to complete — because he finds it a very emotional piece that is lot of fun to play.
"I see the violin as just a way to express emotions and thoughts and ideas — it's really a transportive experience and I really, really love it," said Tilley, who practices "no more than" two hours a day on weekdays because of his intense academy schedule and six or seven hours a day on weekends.
"I think the violin is just unbelievable difficult, the hardest thing I've ever done," he added. "It's infinitely challenging to me."
When Rhodes announced his name as winner, Tilley was amazed. After his performance, third of the three, he initially had focused on the few mistakes he had made. Not having heard Paquet or Clouse play, he had no idea how things stood.
"It was powerful, my heart skipped a beat and I felt a little bit dizzy," he recalled of that moment.
The three finalists were chosen from a field of 11 entries in a recorded audition. The musicians all presented a piece that could be performed with an orchestra; Tilley will play the Bruch concerto with the TSO in September.
Clouse, a junior at Central High School, began playing the clarinet five years ago and studies privately with Jeanmarie Riccobono. Clouse is a member of both the school's Symphony Band and Symphony Orchestra, the Traverse Youth Orchestra and the Northwestern Michigan Honors Orchestra.
Clouse performed Carl Maria von Weber's Concertina for the competition, a piece she had unsuccessfully attempted last year but clicked with this year.
"I just like the way the clarinet sounds, especially the low notes, it can be so fierce or so beautiful," said Clouse, who is planning a career in music. "Music just doesn't happen, maybe for some people it does and they just grab an instrument and play. But for me it's taken many, many, many years of trying to get into it and feel it in my heart."
A sophomore at Central High School, Paquet chose the cello in sixth grade after first trying out — and not liking — the violin. She has studied privately for four years with Liz Bert and is a member of the Traverse Youth Orchestra as well as the Central's Symphony Orchestra.
Paquet played Haydn's Cello Concerto in C, 2nd movement, during the Young Artists Competition.
"With a piece like that, it sort of puts you in a place, lets you get away from a lot of things," she said of the music. "There were a couple of things, sure, that I'd like to go back and change, but no matter how many mistakes you make as a performer, you just kind of learn from it and take it with you to future endeavors."