June is a musical month in more ways than one. In The New York Times science section June 1, the Neurosciences Institute Esther J. Burnham Senior Fellow Dr. Aniruddh Patel was interviewed regarding his pioneering work in the field of music and the brain. His major focus, he said in the interview, is to study the biology of how humans make and process music. This weekend in La Jolla, local music lovers may study and experience the process of making music from composer to performance from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, June 12, at Sherwood Auditorium by attending the California International Violin (CIM) Competition to see and hear 12 semi-finalists vie for $10,000 prize money. Admission is free, and attendees will hear each young competitor play a program of approximately 30 minutes duration. The violinists, who hail from Venezuela, the U.S., Taiwan and South Korea, range in age from 14 to 24. Their sonata selections encompass works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Cesar Franck, Richard Strauss and Piotor Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Shorter selections on the “play” list include works by Maurice Ravel, Sergey Prokofiev, Eugene Ysaye, Karol Szymanowski, Tchaikovsky, Henri Wieniawski and Franz Waxman. Among the competitors are two San Diego County residents, 14-year-old Annelle Gregory and 16-year-old Carolyn Lee. Both are students at California Institute of Music (CIM). Other schools represented by the competitors are The Juilliard School of Music, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, New England Conservatory of Music, Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Curtis Institute of Music and Oberlin Conservatory of Music. “I love the sound of the violin, I love playing it, and one day I want to be a concert violinist and tour the world,” said Annelle Gregory, who lives in Carmel Valley and is a home-schooled ninth grade student at Mt. Everest Academy. “My regular violin studies consist of two private lessons a week and one lesson in chamber music,” said the busy young woman who practices a minimum of two hours each day and even more when she is studying for a competition. Right now, in preparation for Saturday, there are extra lessons with teachers Michael and Irina Tseitlin at CIM as well as extra sessions with her piano accompanist, Yulia Atoyan. Multiplying Gregory’s activities by 12 gives one some idea of what goes into becoming a professional musician. Competitions such as the one in La Jolla provide steps along the way. Saturday’s judges will select four finalists who will compete from noon to 2 p.m. Sunday at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido. Meanwhile, at 8 p.m. Saturday at Sherwood, there is a free, not-to-be-missed concert featuring violinist David Chan, concertmaster of the New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; pianist Keven FitzGerald; and classical/jazz violinist Pasha Tseitlin. Voluntary donations are appreciated.
