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Winners Announced for 2008 BSO Concerto Competition

BOSTON, MA: The Boston Symphony Orchestra Education and Community Programs Office is proud to announce the winners of the 2008 BSO Concerto Competition.

First place winners were violinist Daisy Joo and pianist JeeHae Ahn. A junior at Sharon High School, Ms. Joo studies with Jin-Kyung Joen. She was awarded the Harry & Marion Dubbs Brookline Youth Concerts Award, for which she will receive a cash prize and a performance at an upcoming Boston Pops concert. Ms. Joo performed the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D Major, first movement.


Ms. Ahn, a sophomore at the Walnut Hill School in Natick, studies with Wha Kyuung Byun. As the winner of the Cornelius A. & Muriel P. Wood Award, she will receive a cash prize and a performance with the Boston Symphony at an upcoming Family Concert. She performed the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3, first movement.

Trumpeter Nathaniel Meyer and flutist Katherine Griffith won second and third place honors, respectively. A junior at Belmont Hill School who placed third in last year’s competition, Mr. Meyer studies with Albert DiPietro. He performed the first movement of the Neruda Trumpet Concerto. Ms. Griffith is a junior at Weston High School in Weston, MA who studies with Daniel Riley. She performed the Chaminade Concertino. Both Meyer and Griffith will receive cash awards and certificates to recognize their achievements.

Among the Honorable Mention recipients were pianist Mark Galinovsky (Newton South High School), flutist Sarah Shin (Walnut Hill School) violinist Hayato Ishibashi (Walnut Hill School), violinist Oren Ungerleider (Lincoln Sudbury Regional High School), cellist SuJin Lee (Newton South High School), cellist Tavi Ungerleider (Lincoln Sudbury Regional High School), and violinist Ji-Young Park (Walnut Hill School).

The judges for the competition were Cathy Basrak, Bruce Creditor, Tim Genis, Ben Levy and Mike Roylance.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition was borne from the BSO’s Youth Concert series which was founded by the late Harry Ellis Dickson in 1959. In 1996 the BSO competition and the Brookline Youth Concerto Competition merged to create the current prestigious BSO Concerto Competition. Each year, advanced high school instrumentalists compete in two rounds for the opportunity to win cash awards and to perform with the Boston Symphony Orchestra or the Boston Pops. Past participants have continued their studies at such prestigious universities and conservatories such as the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston University, Curtis, Juilliard, Peabody Conservatory, and Manhattan School of Music. Competition winners, including the BSO’s own assistant principal bassist Larry Wolfe, have gone on to careers as soloists, orchestral musicians, and teachers. For more Information, go to www.bso.org.