Heritage Fund announces Brown Music Competition awards
Heritage Fund announces Columbus North High School seniors Clayton Stine and Sarah Pankratz as the first-place winners in the recent 2017 Brown Music Competition.
Stine, playing the alto saxophone, placed first in the Betty F. Brown Awards for Instrumental Excellence, performing "Concerto, Movement 1" by Dubois. Pankratz, a mezzo, received first place in the Anna Newell Brown Awards for Vocal Excellence, singing "Who Reads by Starlight" by Laudisen and "Mon Coeur s'ouvre a ta voix" by Saint-Saens. Both students will receive a college scholarship in the amount of $3,500.
Also in the senior instrumental competition, Richard Liu and Samuel Heichelbech received second-place awards of $1,250. Liu, playing piano, performed "Jardins sous la pluie" by Debussy. Heichelbech performed "Premiere Rhapsodie" also by Debussy on clarinet. Hannah Walker received third-place honors and an award of $1,000 for her performance of "La Plus Que Lente" by Debussy on piano.
In the senior vocal competition, Heichelbech, a baritone, received second-place honors and an award of $1,500, performing "Thou Art Gone Up on High" by Handel and "Still Wie Die Nacht" by Bohm. Brittany Davis and Samuele Beggs received third-place awards of $1,000. Davis, a mezzo, performed "I Can't Be Talkin' of Love" by Duke and "Erlkonig" by Schubert. Beggs, a tenor, performed "Che Fiero Costume" by Legrenzi and "Linden Lea" by Vaughan Williams.
Fourteen seniors competed in the instrumental competition and four seniors participated in the vocal competition.
In the sophomore and junior competitions, 20 instrumentalists and 14 vocalists competed for scholarships for music lessons or music camps.
Underclassmen winners:
Instrumentalists: Alex Farrar, Eli Heichelbech, Yijiang Zhao and Amanda Wissmann, each receiving $750 awards.
Vocalists: Joseph Robinson, Emily Sipes and Tristan Grider each receiving $600 awards; and Erin Erickson, Ciaran Hill and Pavithra Venkataraman, each receiving $400 awards.
Also of special note this year, The Columbus Indiana Philharmonic made its newly handcrafted Shigeru Kawai EX Concert Series Grand Piano, gifted by Enkei America Inc., available to us for the competition. The grand piano is the largest of the series in which fewer than 20 are crafted each year, and our student pianists shared how much they enjoyed the opportunity to play the instrument.
The Betty F. Brown Awards for Instrumental Excellence was established by Mr. Brown in 1992 in memory of his wife, Betty. Mrs. Brown was a well-known and highly respected advocate and patron of the arts, both locally and statewide.
The Anna Newell Brown Awards for Vocal Excellence were established through the Heritage Fund in 1985 by Robert and Betty Brown to honor Mr. Brown's mother, Anna Newell Brown. She was a distinguished vocalist and contributed greatly to the cultural life of the Bartholomew County Community.
Robert N. Brown was the longtime chairman of Home News Enterprises, The Republic's parent company. He also served as chairman of the Heritage Fund Board from 1980 to 1983, during which the foundation awarded its first grant - a $500 award for the Art in Public Places Program.