48th Young Artists Competition
Bushnell Center for Performing Arts
Hartford
April 11, 2026
Well, at least Winfield Dubruck, Jr. understands my pain.
Winfield was the audio technician for the 48th annual Young Artists Competition, a classical music contest hosted by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra for exemplary high school artists. Winfield and I were talking about our own music experiences. We were both pretty good in high school, managing to qualify for regional bands in our heyday.
But these kids? Reading their biographies was the equivalent to scarfing down a buffet’s worth of humble pie. French horn player Matthew Li was the principal horn for the China Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. Pianist Edward Neems has already won numerous competitions, including international ones. Cellist Harry Tao already has a string quartet and has performed at music festivals around the country. Oboist Yaoyao Yuan is already published for translating Latin art songs. Pianist Lina Elwood has performed at the Chopin University of Music in Poland.
Suffice to say, I wasn’t that good.
But it’s a privilege to have the opportunity to see the next generation of top0tier talent perform. This wasn’t going to your kid’s band concert and clapping politely through all the squeaks. This was like watching LeBron James in the McDonald’s All-American basketball game when he was still in high school.
The competition kicked off with Matthew Li performing Horn Concerto No. 4 in E Flat Major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Longtime readers will know the French Horn is my favorite musical instrument. Li imbues the instrument with a warm, expansive sound that highlights the horn’s ability to sound like it’s soaring, with arching runs and sustained notes. I’m not a horn expert, but I know those trills he pulled off so effortlessly are not easy on a brass instrument.
As a former clarinet player, I am more familiar with the technical demands of woodwind instruments, which is what made Yaoyao Yuan’s rendition of Gran Concerto on Themes from "I Vespri Sicilliani" by Antonio Pasculli so memorable. It’s not just about the speed at which her fingers were flying across her oboe, but her ability to make such speedy play sound amazing. It’s a testament not only to her dexterity, but to her breath control and focus. Believe me, it’s much easier than you might think to be so focused on fingering the right note that you forget to actually blow.
The competition ended with Lina Elwood playing Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18 by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Skill, focus, talent and commitment are necessary to reach the levels that all the performers have achieved. But the most important of these intangible qualities is heart– the ability to convey emotion through art. I couldn’t believe that Lina is only 16 years old, because her emotional command of the music far outstrips her age. Knowing when to lean into the piano, when to pull back, where to place the emphasis in a long run of notes are all interpretive decisions that influence how music makes us feel. Lina had total control over the piece’s expressiveness, making her performance feel more like a journey than passively enjoying music.
Another thing to keep in mind is these are not short, three-minute radio songs. These young masters are playing some of the most technically demanding songs in their genre, for 10 minutes or more, from memory. They are being emotive and expressive while doing so. Performance of this caliber requires physical fitness and endurance in addition to skill, so the comparison to basketball isn’t that far off.
So who is the LeBron James of Connecticut classical music? None other than Lina Elwood, who won first place. She received a cash prize as well as the opportunity to perform with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. It was a terrific competition, and the future of classical music looks bright with such talented stewards.
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Jamil is looking for cool events this week. Any suggestions, drop him a comment!
