2011 - 2012 Featured Artists


Ann-Elise Siden

ann-elise

YAO oboist Ann-Elise Siden, age 17, is a senior at Southside High School where she is pursuing an International Baccalaureate Diploma. Ann-Elise was a member of the GCYO Philharmonic for three years before joining the Young Artist Orchestra last year. She began playing the oboe as a seventh grader in the Beck Academy Middle School Band and studies with Mary AllyeB Purtle who has been her teacher and mentor for five years.
 

Ann-Elise spent this past summer at the 2012 Interlochen Arts Camp where she studied with Daniel Stolper and had classes with Linda Strommen and Jared Hauser. In previous summers she has attended the South Carolina Governor's School Summer Music Program and the Oxford Oboe Camp. She has performed in master classes with Elaine Douvas of the New York Metropolitan Opera and Rebecca Nagel of the South Carolina Philharmonic. In both 2010 and 2011 Ann-Elise received Honorable Mentions at the South Carolina MTNA Senior Woodwind Competition. In 2011 she won the GMTA Scholarship Competition and placed third in the Limestone College Young Artist Competition. She has been a member of the South Carolina All-State Band each of the past four years.

Other musical endeavors have included playing saxophone in the Southside High School Marching Band, studying piano with Lisa Lee, and playing oboe and English horn in St. Joseph's High School's production of Beauty and the Beast. Ann-Elise also enjoys traveling abroad, and in 2011 she participated in a language and cultural immersion program in Gatchina, Russia as the recipient of an NSLI-Y scholarship sponsored by the U.S. State Department. She plans to continue her study of music in college and combine it with a second major in math or a science-related field.


 

Hayden Wilson                                                 
                          hayden                                                                                                                                                                                  
Hayden, age seventeen, is a junior at Wade Hampton High School and the Fine Arts Center, where she studies strings chamber with John Ravnan. Her interest in playing the violin began when she was in preschool watching her father play the violin, who was also a former member of the GCYO when he was a teen. Hayden began private lessons at the early age of six. She currently studies with Deirdre Hutton.

Hayden has been a member of the GCYO since the age of eleven, when she began playing in the Philharmonic. She joined the YAO in 2009, and during the 2010-2011 orchestra cycle she was awarded Outstanding Strings Player. Hayden was also one of the recipients of the scholarships the YAO awarded this past spring. She has served as concert mistress for the YAO, Western Region, and South Carolina All-State Orchestra.

Hayden enjoys performing in the orchestra as well as a soloist. Hayden would like to thank her parents, her current teachers Deirdre Hutton, John Ravnan, and Dr. Robinson, and  former teachers Lucie Fink and Dr. Suzanne Nelson for all of their instruction and encouragement



  Stephen Hawkey

Stephen YAO principal cellist Stephen Hawkey will be performing Piano Concerto No. 1 by Franz Liszt. Stephen began playing piano at age five under the tutelage of his older brother. At age eight he began studying with Mrs. Ruth Butterfield-Winter, graduate of Curtis Conservatory and respected pianist in the San Jose, CA, area. Stephen currently studies with Dr. Peter Davis, Coordinator of Group Piano at Bob Jones University and Assistant Music Director at Mount Calvary Baptist Church.

As a sixteen-year-old junior in high school, Stephen has had many musical opportunities. In April of 2011, Stephen performed the final movement of Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto with the Philharmonic Orchestra of GCYO. In the fall of the same year, he won second place in the classical piano division in the Fine Arts Festival held at Bob Jones University. Besides competing and performing, Stephen often accompanies instrumental music and plays piano for church services.

 
In addition to the piano, Stephen also enjoys playing the cello. He currently studies with Dr. Christopher Hutton, graduate of the Eastman School of Music and faculty member of Furman University. Stephen has been a member of the Young Artist Orchestra for four years and received Outstanding String Player awards in the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 seasons. Stephen was also the cello finalist in the 2012 GAMAC Concerto Competition.

Stephen is thankful for his God-given gift of music and for his parents’ support in each endeavor. He is also thankful for his many excellent teachers who have invested their musical gifts and abilities in him.