Five stellar performers win annual Concerto Competition

The SUNY Fredonia School of Music announced a vocalist, a horn player and four saxophone students who play as a quartet are the 2008 winners of its annual Concerto Competition, held every fall to select “the cream of the crop” among music students for solo performances in spring concerts.

Erie Saxophone Quartet: from left to right are Jill Carere, Jacob Swanson, Melissa Widzinski, and Sara Marchitelli. All study with Professor Wildy Zumwalt.

Winners were soprano Laura Noack of Hamburg, N.Y., horn player Dana Barrett of Rochester, N.Y., and the Erie Saxophone Quartet, whose members are Sarah Marchitelli of Rochester, N.Y., Jill Carere of North Tonawanda, N.Y., Melissa Widzinski of Rochester, N.Y., and Jacob Swanson of Gowanda, N.Y. This is the first year that a student ensemble has competed and won in the Fredonia Concerto Competition.

According to Professor Barry Kilpatrick, the Concerto Competition is the ultimate challenge for music students and winning it is the highest honor.

The winning students will be featured soloists during concerts performed by prestigious School of Music ensembles in the spring semester.

The Fredonia School of Music faculty invited eight music majors to compete this year. Preparing for the competition is tough, Kilpatrick said. "The students who performed in the competition put in many months of lessons, individual practicing, memorizing, and rehearsing with accompanists," he said.

• Noack is a senior music education major who studied voice for seven years as a student of Voice Professor Gerald T. Gray. 
• Barrett is a senior music education major who has been studying the horn for 12 years and is a student of Professor Marc Guy. 
• Saxophone students Marchitelli, Carere, Widzinski, and Swanson formed the quartet in 2006 to devote themselves to performing saxophone as a classical and chamber instrument. The ensemble has performed across New York, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky, and inspired local and international composers to write pieces exclusively for it. All students of Professor Wildy Zumwalt, Marchitelli is a senior majoring in music education; Carere is a junior majoring in music education; Widzinski is a junior majoring in sound recording technology; and Swanson is a senior majoring in music education. 

The Erie Saxophone Quartet is scheduled to perform a recital at Monday, Sept. 22, at 8 p.m. in Rosch Recital Hall.