The winners of the Ithaca College Concerto Competition will perform with the Ithaca College Symphony Orchestra on Sunday, March 4. Free and open to the public, the concert will take place at 4 p.m. in Ford Hall.
Each winter, students in the School of Music have the opportunity to compete by preparing and performing a concerto or major work for a panel of judges. Through a rigorous selection process, the faculty panel selected soprano Megan Jones, saxophonist Sara Mercurio and pianist Ivan Yumagulov as this year’s winners.
Under the baton of conductor Octavio Más-Arocas, Jones will sing “Où va la jeune Hindoue” from Léo Delibes opera “Lakmé,” Mercurio will perform the Andante et Allegro from Henri Tomasi’s Concerto pour Saxophone et Orchestra and Yumagulov will play the Andante Sostenuto from Camille Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, opus 22. The Symphony Orchestra will also perform Ottorino Respighi’s “Vetrate di Chiesa “(Church Windows, Four impressions for Orchestra).
Megan Jones is a junior vocal performance major in the studio of Marc Webster from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She has been a part of the Ithaca College’s Woman’s Chorale and Choir, three student-run productions, and last year’s Ithaca College Theatre production of “La Clemenza di Tito.” Jones coordinated a concert this past fall in the music school to raise awareness for mental health, and hopes to continue to use her voice to make people happy through performing and community outreach.
Sara Mercurio is currently double majoring in music and psychology, and studies saxophone with Steven Mauk. The sophomore is a member of the Ithaca College Wind Symphony, Jazz Repertory Ensemble and Saxophone Ensemble and the Venia Saxophone Quartet. She is regularly involved in the music community of her hometown of West Islip, New York, where she mentors younger students and provides music lessons. In the future, Mercurio hopes to have a career in psychology, where she both provides support for people in need as well as healing through the redemptive qualities of music.
Ivan Yumagulov is a freshman majoring in piano performance and music education in the studio of Charis Dimaras. A native of Chelyabinsk, Russia, he started his musical education on accordion and began studying piano when his family moved to the United States. Yumagulov has won numerous regional and international competitions, and has played at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall in New York City, the Artist Piano Centre and St Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Syracuse, NY. An alumnus of both Ithaca College’s and Indiana University’s Summer Piano Institutes, Yumagulov also plays the saxophone.