On April 4, Saturday, Washburn hosted a Cello Solo Festival. The festival took place from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. and had over 20 soloists from surrounding high schools. The festival was hosted by the Washburn Cellos and Topeka Cello collective at Hurd Recital Hall. It was hosted with the hopes of developing the young high school musicians more.
There were three judges sitting on the panel who were all Washburn college students: Laura Wilson, junior cello and vocal major, Lyona Taylor, freshmen music education major, and Cora Ambrose, freshman music education major.
Ambrose has known for a few months that she would be a judge. Ambrose has always wanted to be a teacher and is just now narrowing down the subject she wants to teach.
“I have a strong love for music, so I ultimately decided that teaching music would be a really good thing to do because of how important it is to me in my life,” Ambrose said.
Ambrose finds that the most difficult part of judging is “trying to be encouraging because they are just kids, so you want to make them not disheartened or anything.” Ambrose has never judged before. Nonetheless, She said “listening to their growth as musicians” is her favorite part of judging. Ambrose shouts out her colleagues for always “inspiring her” and she has been studying under Erinn Renyer, music lecturer, for five years now.
Erin Replogle was the second person to perform at the festival, playing “Concerto in D Major” by Mendelssohn. The performance took place at 9:15 in the morning. Replogle is a senior at Washburn Rural High School. Replogle has been playing cello for seven years now and finds inspiration from his girlfriend Emma, who also plays the cello.
“It’s fun to be able to play a piece with her and talk about music on a more detailed level with her,” Replogle said.
Regarding Replogle’s performance at Hurd Recital Hall, he said it wasn’t perfect, but he made it through and got some of the harder spots down.
Replogle is playing at Kansas State High School Activities Association next week.
Finley Guccione, a junior at Washburn Rural High School, played at the Cello Festival. Guccione performed “Concertino” by Klengel. She started playing cello in the fifth grade.
“I really like slower, more like vibrato focused pieces and I really also like dabbling in faster pieces like the one I just played,” Guccione said.
Guccione is inspired by how fascinating and cool music is and enjoys making music. Guccione found the judges comments to be helpful.
“They’re definitely things I’ve heard before, and I hope I can work on it before next week,” Guccione said.
Guccione is also planning on performing at KSHSAA. Guccione has participated in the Cello festival in years prior.
Lastly, Genevieve Stanley, a sophomore at Shawnee Heights High School, performed “At Morn” by Squire. Stanley has been practicing for this performance for over two months. She enjoys lower tones and versatility of the cello compared to the violin and values her school partner.
Stanley started playing cello in the fifth grade and finds performing with a pianist helps to calm her nerves.
“I had to practice alone, but having someone next to me is good, and then just taking deep breaths, trying to not take it too seriously,” Stanley said.
When asked how she felt about the judges comments Stanley expressed her thoughts.
“I think they were definitely accurate to my playing and I can definitely take a lot of them into account next time I play,” Stanley said.
Stanley has never performed in front of a panel of judges before.
“It wasn’t like face to face like this, it was kind of like blind auditions. But it was a little bit more nerve wracking this time,” Stanley said.
The Cello festival provides opportunities for both high school students and students of Washburn University.
Edited by Stuti Khadka and Anushma Dahal
