Congratulations to the 2021 Honors Artists!
Hartt Honors Artist 2020-2021 Awards
Junior Division Awardees:
Voice:
1st place: Mateo Velasquez Maineri
Piano:
1st place: Jennifer Chen
2nd place: Silvan Friedman
3rd place: Philip Larson
Guitar:
1st place: Elias Dahlin
2nd place: Aidan Ngai
Winds/Brass/Percussion:
1st place: Emily Denucci
2nd place: Lauren Marze
3rd place: Arlo Tucker
Strings:
1st place: John Kramer
2nd place: Christopher Smith
3rd place: Tristan Buttimer
Junior Finalists:
| Audrey Antony | Alice Li | Liya Tang |
| Lexi Barry | Jayda McKerley | Eric Zhao |
| Willa Brasch | Peter Morand | Mindy Zhao |
| Tommy Carty | Kate Qian | Andrew Zhong |
| Annabelle Chan | Dustin Rood | |
| Tony Gao | Michael Sigal |
Senior Division Awardees:
Voice:
BelCanto Award:
Avery Woods Weber
1st place: Bethany Rocktaschel
2nd place: Jade Beaulieu
3rd place: Mauricio Vega-Estades
Piano:
1st place: Thomas Tarutin
2nd place: Grace Nieh
3rd place: Matthew Cianfaglione
Winds/Brass/Percussion:
1st place: Rai Kumar
2nd place: Alan Wang
3rd place: Bailey Cox
Strings
Best Overall Across Both Divisions:
Vien Le
Senior:
1st place: Tyler Ngai
2nd place: Lauren Gauvin
3rd place: Chris Hill
Graduating Senior (Across All Categories):
1st place: Gianna Weidman
2nd place: Paige Drury
3rd place: Lang Le
Senior Finalists:
| Mackenzi Banet | Sabrina Jones | Alex Larson | Arielle Sussman |
| Lucy Campbell | Caroline Keen | Isabella O’Connor | Kevin Tang |
| Amelia Caruk | Andrew Kotait | Jade Iris Schoenfeld | Amanda Witt |
| Olivia Daigneault | Samantha Kramer | Charles Sinche | Logan Yuan |
| Andy Dong | AnnaLeah Lacoss | Clara Steele | Julia Zheng |
| Alex Hu | Arielena Lang | Yumeko Stern |
Honorable Mentions
Connor McWilliams
Zuri Freeman
Aarika Biswas
Shriya Dharan
Jason Cao
Tony Korkmaz
Jimmy Dong
Sasha Dausey
Tuan Phung
Wei Li
Jason Nguyen
Dustin Rood
Ilana Brown
Marion Patsalides
Lillian Peng
Brady Xue
Susanna Gerald
Mercedes Roussos
Emily Massicotte
Caroline Granger
Teddy Zhang
Samyukta Senthil
Brian Cunningham
Amy Wei
Joshua Lee
Silvan Friedman
Chloe Weathers
Sage Campbell
Monica Weidman
Join our community of Honors Artists.
Honors is a longstanding Hartt Community tradition celebrating the individual accomplishments of students within each department of Hartt Community Division.
This year will be no exception, although the department-specific recitals and awards will be replaced with school-wide, unified, and inclusive opportunities including:
- Scholarship awards up-to full tuition
- Engagement and service to the school
- Student accolades and promotion
- Performance opportunities to showcase Honors Artists from Hartt and across the community.
Please note that we have made extensive changes to the honors program and seek to provide more opportunities for a greater population of students. Additional details are included in this program packet.
The Honors recitals (junior and senior) will be populated by students of varying instruments/voice from across the school and community, creating a Hartt Honors Artist program like never before.
Awards will include the following (internal and external):
- Top-Prizes Junior Honors (grade 7-9)
- Top-Prizes Senior Honors (grade 10-12)
- Top-Prizes Graduating Seniors
It will also include dozens of tiered scholarships ranging from honorable mention to full-tuition across Junior and Senior categories.
Congratulations to all of the winners and honorable mentions!
Thank you to our supporters!
- Musical Club of Hartford
- Evelyn Bonar Storrs Memorial Scholarship (I/II)
- John Jorgensen Memorial Scholarship
- Abraham Huang Memorial Scholarship
- Nancy Andersen Vocal Fund
- David Einfeldt Memorial Fund
- Beatrice Sewall Scholarship
- Dr. Watson Morrison Scholarship
- Jeffrey Quinn Morrison Prize
- Kaplan Bel Canto Scholarship
- Community School Scholarship
- Alice Kaiser Fund
Application Process
Eligibility:
Students (internal and external to Hartt) in grades 7-12
Requirements | Submission:
- Submit a video of a solo music performance (accompanied or unaccompanied) on any instrument/voice
- Applicant is responsible for securing accompaniment in the initial round
- Material may be chosen from any musical genre
- Memorization is strongly recommended, but not required
- Video submission may be either an entire piece/movement/song or an excerpt of 2 minutes (minimum).
Video Requirements:
Videos must begin with a verbal introduction that contains the following:
- Student Name
- Student Grade
- Title of Piece
- Composer of Piece
Submission Deadlines & Details
Important Deadlines | Process Information
- Video submission links must be received by April 30, 2021 at 11:59 p.m. EST
- Finalists in the Junior (Grades 7-9) and Senior (Grades 10-12) categories will be chosen by an internal panel of Hartt judges.
- Adjudicators are selected to ensure a conflict-free process
- Finalists will be notified by email on Friday, May 14, 2021 along with a brief personal/artistic questionnaire
- Students who are selected as finalists will be offered the opportunity to re-record their video performance in full and with an HCS collaborative pianist, if they wish from the finalists, the Associate Dean, Director of Community Programs, and Director of Engagement will determine the recipients of the 2021 Hartt Honors Artist recognition and scholarship awards
- Awards will be announced at the end of a pre-recorded video recital on June 5, 2021 (Junior - 5 p.m.; Senior 7 p.m.)
Final performance-ready videos are due by May 26, 2021
Dance Honors merit-awards and scholarships will be provided by Artistic and Education Director, Sarkis Kaltakhtchian.
The Commitment
Honors status includes a monetary award (except graduating seniors) that is redeemable to any HCS program. The following commitments are expected of Hartt Honors Artists:
- Submit a video performance for the virtual recital (re-recorded through HCS)
- Thank you letters to our amazing donors
- 10 hours of school support service with our Youth-2-Community program (Y2C)
- Senior Awardees are required to provide testimonials about their HCS experience (video, print, photo), and will be showcased via our media outlets
- Select awardees will be invited to participate in a recital for the Musical Club of Hartford (scholarship donors) in January 2022—TBD in-person or virtual
Current HCS Students (internal candidates) will submit a video link (YouTube) to your private instructor, along with the following information:
- Student Name
- Student Grade
- Instrument/Voice
- Years of Study
- Name of Piece Performed
- Composer of Piece Performed
- Video Link
External competitors will send a video link (YouTube) and introductory email message including the following to harttcomm@hartford.edu:
-
- Student Name
- Student Grade
- Instrument/Voice
- Years of Study
- Name of Piece Performed
- Composer of Piece Performed
- Video Link
Incomplete or late submissions (after April 30, 11:59 EST) will not be considered.
- All recordings for the 2021 Hartt Honors auditions must be uploaded and submitted via YouTube links for adjudication. Please do not submit scores of recorded pieces, due to possible copyright infringement. After your recordings are finished, upload them as an “unlisted” video on YouTube, using the instructions below. You can do this through the YouTube App or desktop. YouTube accepts any of the following video formats:
- .MO, .MPEG4, .MP4, .AVI, .WMV, .MPEGPS, .FLV, .3GPP and WebM.
- Go to www.youtube.com and sign in. If you do not already have an account, create one.
- Click the “upload” button at the top.
- Either click on the “Select files to upload” box and select your video file from your device or drag and drop your video file into the box.
- In the “Basic Info” screen, in the title box, please include the following: the student’s name and grade, along with the name and composer of the piece.
- In the video description box, also enter the student’s name and grade, along with the name and composer of the piece.
- Change the visibility setting from “Public” to “Unlisted” and click “Done.” DO NOT select “Private.” Failure to follow this instruction will prevent the adjudicators from accessing your video and thus result in disqualification.
- Click “Save”
- Current HCS Students: Submit video links to your HCS private instructor at least a week prior to the due date; External students please submit your video link to harttcomm@hartford.edu by April 30, 2021 at 11:59pm EST
- By submitting the video links, you are granting consent for these videos to be viewed by an adjudicator for evaluation purposes.
- Videos received after the deadline of April 30, 2021 at 11:59pm EST will not be accepted.
- .MO, .MPEG4, .MP4, .AVI, .WMV, .MPEGPS, .FLV, .3GPP and WebM.
- Posting music on YouTube may violate copyright law. Please make sure the visibility is set to “Unlisted”, and not “Public.”
- When uploading videos to YouTube, if the video is over 15 minutes long, YouTube will not upload the video unless the account is “verified.” The students should be prepared to wait a long time to upload, several hours for long videos.
- We expect that while we are remote videos will be made at home by the student. The quality of instrument, location, or quality of video will not be a factor in judging.
- Video recordings should be made with a single fixed camera angle and location. The camera should focus on the performer’s face, hands, body, and instrument/keyboard. To ensure quality and consistency of the videos among entrants, set up the camera from the audience perspective, limit background noise, and make sure the performance space is well lit.
- Videos must begin with a verbal introduction contains the following:
- Student Name
- Student Grade
- Title of Piece
- Composer of Piece
Editing of video files is strictly forbidden. Your selection should be filmed straight through.