Student Accomplishments

Ariel Wong

Ariel Wong, BYU piano performance major, was the winner of MTNA’s 2021 Southwest regional division competition for the high school division. Previously, she was the 1st prize winner for the state of Utah. (Ariel skipped a grade, and being 18, still qualified to compete in this division.)

She competed against the state winners from the Southwest region of the US including California, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, and New Mexico. She now moves onto the national finals competition taking place in March. Her repertoire included Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses, Op.54, Dutilleux’s Chorale and Variations, and Wagner-Liszt’s Liebestod. This is the 2nd year in a row that a BYU student has made it to the national finals.

The video above is of Ariel playing Rachmaninov while competing in the 2020 Emory Young Artist competition in Atlanta where she was prize winner.

This list of music majors (and one music minor) were all hired to sing as the chorus in a recording project for the new concert film version of Rob Gardner’s Lamb of God. You can hear them in this trailer:

Other BYU faculty members performed as part of the orchestra in the same production.

The film will come out on March 12. It was recorded in Park City on Feb. 3-6, 2021. These students are all members of BYU Singers and Concert Choir.

Click below to hear them in the trailer. Josie Larsen Courtney Lawson Savannah Porter Grace Hancock Emma Bursell Ally Christiansen Amanda Anderson Cristy Ruiz Amanda Capener Jaycee Jensen Logan Reid Adam Cook Matthew Paez Ethan Simpson Isaac Carlin Benjamin Peterson

Music minor: Shaliah Ellingson

Angela Whiting

Angela Whiting, Voice Student of Janilyn Anderson, was named as a regional finalist and ultimately won 3rd place in the Cal-Western Regional NATS Vocal Competition. She competed in the Lower College, Musical Theatre Division. She is now eligible to compete in the National NATS Competition (July 2021).

Tanner Johnson, Jared Bledsoe, and Liam Harris

Tanner Johnson, Jared Bledsoe, and Liam Harris created the band “Solar Flare”. They have been together about a year and have been releasing singles.

Their name is Solar Flare because they want to spread light. “That’s our mission. Solar Flares are bursts of light on the sun, so we found it fitting.”

In January 2021, they released a new song called Photogenic.

Click the link to the left to listen.