UK Senior Wins Brevard's Best College Student Award
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Aug. 27, 2014) — Current and former University of Kentucky School of Music students and faculty members had a productive seven weeks at the Brevard Music Center in Brevard, North Carolina. Among the UK participants in summer programming at Brevard, was cello performance senior Jerram John, recipient of the center's coveted Best College Student Award.
Brevard's Best College Student Award was presented to John based on his overall participation in the musical and campus life of the festival. This prize, given to only one college student per year, includes a full tuition scholarship for the coming summer. Previous UK cellists and alumnae who received the award are Andrea Kleesattel and Maggie Thompson.
John was among a group of students and alumni participating in the festival. Other UK students joining John at Brevard were: cello performance sophomore Julia Dixon, of Louisville, Kentucky; 2014 graduate and cellist Maureen Kelly, of La Crosse, Wisconsin; graduate student and violist Seon Kyu Kim, of Incheon, Korea; and 2014 graduate and violinist William Ronning, of Noblesville, Indiana. Alumni participating were Leigh Dixon and Megan Lineberry.
In addition to UK student participants, two faculty members, Benjamin Karp, associate professor of violoncello, and Margaret Karp, adjunct violin professor, have been in residence for the past seven summers at Brevard.
At the festival, Kelly and John spent several weeks playing principal cello of the Brevard Sinfonia, the all-college orchestra, and sitting on the first stand of the Brevard Music Center Orchestra, the combined faculty/student ensemble. Together they made up the first desk of the Brevard Camerata for a special concert.
Kelly, who received her master's degree in May, was chosen to join a faculty/student chamber ensemble including Cleveland Orchestra Concertmaster William Preucil in a performance of Tchaikovsky’s string sextet “Souvenir of Florence.”
Ronning, who also received his master's degree in May, sat principal second violin in the Sinfonia, and performed in masterclass for Noah Bendix-Balgley, concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony and recently named first concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic.
Brevard Music Center is a summer institute and a festival founded in 1936. The center has matured into one of this country's premier summer training programs and festivals. More than 400 gifted students, ages 14 through post-college, come to Brevard to study with members of a distinguished artist faculty and with renowned guest artists. For seven weeks, students participate in a vigorous program of instruction that includes ensembles, private lessons and chamber music.
The UK School of Music at the UK College of Fine Arts has garnered a national reputation for high-caliber education in opera, choral and instrumental music performance, as well as music education, composition, and theory and music history.
MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, 859-257-8716; whitney.hale@uky.edu