The Carmel Arts Council held the 13^th annual Young Performer’s Showcase as a chance for local youth to show their talents to the public. The annual showcase features elementary through high school musicians and vocalists across the area.

Competitive and non-competitive events help young artists become comfortable with the performance atmosphere and also receive feedback to further improve and grow. This year’s event was very well attended by 136 young performers, and took three full days to hear each young musician.

Two $1,500 scholarships were awarded to Carmel High School seniors for outstanding achievement on the piano and in performance. Jingxuan Zhang, a senior at Carmel High School, won the $1500 piano scholarship, while Alexandra Dierkman, also a senior at CHS, won the other scholarship for vocal performance. Dierkman plans to attend Indiana University in the fall and has not decided a major, but plans to take music classes with the scholarship.

Zhang, who has performed in Carnegie Hall, on the radio program From the Top, and with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, plans to also attend Indiana University and will use the scholarship to help pay for piano lessons and further instructions.

For younger performers just getting comfortable on stage, the Showcase is a very exciting opportunity. According to Izabelle Black, a 12-year-old singer who performed Miley Cyrus and Emily Osment’s song “Wherever I Go” with her friend Liv Moloy, the pair’s friendship helped spawn the idea for participating in the event.

“We’ve always sung together, and we were looking through songs and saw that this one was a duet, and it was already split into parts,” Black said.

Julia Clark, a second grade student at Carmel Elementary, sang the song “The Seahorse” at the event. Clark said that she practiced often to get ready for the performance.

The Young Performer’s Showcase is sponsored by the Carmel Arts Council and Piano Solutions in Carmel.

Winners for the Performance Division:

Instrument Performance Division

Age 5-8

1^st: Margaret Rossi

2^nd: Jacob Lo

3^rd: Chrisitan Lo

4^th Abigail Ko

Age 9-12

1^st: Sarah Liu

2^nd: Alice Wou

Age 13-14

1^st: Sidney Hartwick

Vocal Performance Division

Age 5-8

1^st: Julia Clark

Age 9-12

1^st: Delaney Jackson

2^nd: Harley Walker

3^rd: Rachel Gasteneau

4^th: Jinnie Tomes

Age 13-15

1^st: Anna Brooke

2^nd: Katrien Vandrbech

3^rd: Erika Matthews

Age 16-18

1^st: Emma Petts

Duet Vocal Performance Division

1^st: Izabella Black and Liv Moloy

Dance Performance Division

Age 9-12

1^st: Sierra Perdew

2^nd: Camille Kern

Age 13-15

1^st: Kelly O’Malley

Age 16-18

1^st: Cheyenne Atkins

Scholarships Winners for Perforamnce

1^st: Alex Dierkman

2^nd: Madeline Hess

Piano Performance Winners

Section A, age 9

Solos:

Adelle Murphy
Ethan Zhang
Christina Yang
Chendi Liu
Alexander Gu

Duets:

Adelle Murphy & Christina Yang
Angela He & Angela Sun
Sophia Delgado & Rebecca Delgado

Section C, age 8

Solos:

Madison Weiss
Calina He
Jenny Cai
Emily Peng
Mai-Thanh Ngyuyen

Section D, age 10-11

Solos:

Rebecca Qin
Angela He
Michael Wang
Mai-Linh Nguyen
Amy Zhou

Section E, age 9-12

Solos:

Grace Ziegele
Anthony Peterson
Aaron Shi
Edgar Melkonyan
Caleb He

Section F, age 13

Solos:

Ari Brown
Blake Felt
Jeffrey Cheng
Yichang Cui
Nadia Fulk

Duets:

Nadia Fulk & Sterling Fulk

Section J, age 8

Solos:

Karen Zhang
Michael Zhang
Julia Gorin
Gracie Tubbs
Sarah Myung

Section B, ages 5-7

Solos:

Emily Shu
Rebekah Hong
Chenyao Liu
Katerina Folkin
Iris Yan

Duets:

Chenyao Liu & Chendi Liu
Justin Wang & Kevin Shen
Sarah Liao & Stephanie Liao

Section G, ages 13-15

Solos:

Jiayi Wu
Julie Puckett
Baizhen Zhu
Cynthia Wu
Eileen Du

Section H, ages 16-18

Solos:

Mason Yao
Christine Mitchell
Nick Sokol
Caroline Zhang
Tie: Sammy Kubina & Jennifer Mithcell

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