Winner Marisol De Anda, with Jake Heggie and Tammy Nelson, BBB cast member Photo by Ron Fujie
Frederica von Stade and James Meredith report proudly that one of her many young protégées and one of his prize students, soprano Marisol De Anda, won a big award, the $10,000 first place in the voice division of the Beach Blanket Babylon Scholarship for the Arts Live Performance Competition.
The impressive panel of judges included San Francisco Opera General Director David Gockley, composer Jake Heggie, Rita Moreno, choreographer Val Caniparoli.
Often chronicled in this Music News column, Marisol is one of the talented youngsters rising from an economically disadvantaged childhood through the Young Musicians Program (now Young Musicians Choral Orchestra), which preceded the El Sistema projects by many years.
Leah Garchik reported the event in The San Francisco Chronicle:
... the voice competition was won by Marisol De Anda of Skyline High School in Oakland. For me, the moving moment was what such a competition is about: When De Anda sang an aria from Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio,” there was a noticeable gasp from the audience.
Suddenly, this high school girl in a sweet and innocent dress became an opera singer in command of the material, her voice high but rich, hitting all the high notes effortlessly. She was in the spotlight, and she was relishing it, sure in her skills.
A few minutes later, when she was called on stage to receive her check, she was wearing her glasses and her whole posture had changed. She was happy, but she could have been the winner of a spelling bee. It had been in singing that the young student was transformed into a young artist.
Another YMPO musician, Akintunde Ahmad, getting awards of his own and has been accepted to three Ivy League colleges
Beach Blanket Babylon's 40th anniversary was celebrated last week in City Hall, with a big crowd including such notables as Michael Tilson Thomas wearing a jacket that I'd rather show than attempt to describe: spectacular!
Besides Marisol, other YMPO alumni of the 2014 class are making headlines around the world. The London Daily Mail has an extensive feature about Akintunde Ahmad, who played French horn, trumpet and drums in the program (and who chose Yale):
An Oakland, California, public school kid who has been accepted to three Ivy League schools says he has to carry around proof of his 5.0 GPA and sky high SAT score because he looks like a 'street dude.'
Akintunde Ahmad has his choice of attending Yale, Brown, Columbia or a slew of other prestigious universities but the people he meets don't believe him thanks to the clothes he wears and dreadlocks he sports.
MTT at the S.F. City Hall celebration of Beach Blanket Babylon
To combat those snap judgments, Ahmad keeps photos of his impressive grades and 2100 SAT score on his phone and can flash them at any disbeliever he wants.
Another YMPO alumnus, saxophonist Monte Metal, is going to Columbia on scholarship. Meredith says "six of the graduating YMCO seniors were accepted by UCLA, among some 80,000 applicants."
YMCO students participate in a six-week summer intensive course in orchestra and chorus rehearsals (with Anthony Parnther), music theory/history classes and private lessons from top teachers. The singers in opera/musical theater (stage directed by Olivia Stapp) rehearse and perform operatic and musical theater works. Masterclasses scheduled for the summer include composer Jake Heggie and pianist/conductor Martin Katz.
