Piano competition at Gavilan College highlights effort to
bolster music programs
Gilroy – It began pianissimo but it may very well be the beginning of a roaring crescendo for the Gavilan Music Department and for Gilroy’s cultural development.
An enthusiastic crowd of family members, friends and music lovers encouraged 29 competitors – ages 8 to 18 – at the first Marian Filice Youth Piano Competition Saturday at the Gavilan College Theater.
The division-specific preliminary performances had wowed attendees, now all that remained was to the select the three most dazzling sets of fingers from among the remaining competitors. As the audience waited expectantly, Gavilan’s brand new grand piano sat centerstage, a symbol of a new beginning and a grander vision for college’s music department.
And the three winners exemplify that vision.
Adena Chen, the 8-year-old Division I winner, opened the evening finals competition with a precociously confident nod of acknowledgment to the audience. She proceeded to play a whimsical piece with a water-like grace that belied her pink jumper and the fact that she has only been playing for 18 months.
Satthea Khay, 13, took the stage next as the Division II winner. Khay played with intense physicality: leaning into the notes, bending and swaying along to the music with a tilt of concentration to her head.
Johnie Kuang, Leah Nascimiento, Trang Bui and David Patrick competed for the prize in the Division III and each performed with eyebrow-raising levels of passion and skill. Judges Arthur Juncker and Joseph Ordaz, both respected musicians and community members, named Bui, 15, champion of the festival. Bui, who started when she was 6, played Brahms’ Capriccio from Opus 116 with emotional intensity. It was almost as though she were brooding over the piece and nursing it to life.
“I cannot reach her when she plays,” Bui’s mother Hang said. Bui says she likes to play because it is “emotional and you get to share your music with everyone.”
In addition to taking home the $500 prize, Bui will open this years Bach to Blues concert and will perform at the South Valley Symphony’s concert on June 2 at Bonfante Gardens.
Guest performer Iryna Smolyakova closed the concert with a startling glimpse of the potential of each young competitor. The Ukranian pianist led the audience on a musical chase. Like an angler luring a prize fish, Smolyakova played with such an intentional sense of dynamics and pacing that the audience was spellbound until she brought her fingers to a halt. Then they erupted in applause.
But, hours before the show, a mere stones throw from the theater, Tim Filice welcomed community members at Gavilan’s Mayoch House. He explained the journey that brought the piano competition to life and invited them to share in the developing vision for Gavilan’s Music Department.
It all began last year when he and his wife, Janice, attended Gavilan’s Bach to Blues concert.
“We were under the mistaken impression that anything with ‘Bach’ in the title wouldn’t do well in Gilroy,” he said. “How wrong we were. The talent was extraordinary. We enjoyed (the concert) from top to bottom.”
The sold out concert made such an impression on the couple that they approached Gavilan Spanish instructor and guitarist Albert Marques and his wife, classically trained pianist Maria Amirkhanian, who had big plans for the restoration of the Gavilan Music Department.
“We were inspired,” Filice said. “We saw the enthusiasm and the creativity and we said ‘we want to be a part of this.’ ”
Marques and Amirkhanian honed their vision for the restoration of the department and what emerged was a vision for a winter music festival at Gavilan the cornerstones of which would be the Bach to Blues Concert and a piano competition that would be named in honor of Filice’s mother, Marian Filice, a longtime community member as well as an accomplished pianist and music instructor.
The Filices were impressed with Marques and Amirkhanian’s vision. To kick things off, they gave the music department its first very own concert-quality grand piano.
The chain of events that followed can only be described as a series of small miracles. Already the Gavilan College Education Foundation had earmarked the funds from its March 4 Cordevalle fundraiser, “Let there be Music,” for the restoration of the music department. Then the Gavilan College Board of Trustees got involved. They agreed to finance an addition to the music department’s staff and they chose none other than Amirkhanian, who holds her doctorate in music from the Moscow Conservatory. Al Navaroli and the South Valley Symphony were the next to contribute; they chose to honor the winners by allowing them to play at SVS’ June 2 concert at Bonfante Gardens.
At this point Filice took further action by sitting down with his brothers and sisters for a family conference. He told them “we have to do something to ensure that the music department will be secure.” The fortunes of the Gavilan Music Department had long been notoriously unstable. “It’s always been kind of finicky, up one year and down the next,” said Gavilan president Steve Kinsella.
The Filices’ goal was to put an end to the stifling insecurity of the music department’s funding. From that meeting was born the Rudy Melone Fund for Music and the Arts. The fund honors Rudy Melone, a former Gavilan College President for 10 years and the founder of the Garlic Festival. Don Christopher was so thrilled when he heard about the fund that he insisted on being the first donor with a $20,000 contribution.
Funding from Measure E and gifts from the Gavilan College Educational Foundation and the Music Club had already begun breathing new life into the Gavilan Music Department in the past year. The funding provided a rebirth for the Bach to Blues concert and the Gavilan Ensemble as well as allowing for the purchase of a first-rate sound system. But now a whole new realm of opportunity has opened through the stabilizing potential of the Rudy Melone Fund.
“This is huge for the Gavilan Music Department,” said Marques. “The funding will allow us to maintain and to build each year.” Future projects include transforming the Arts Lecture music hall into an intimate concert hall setting with a state of the art digital recording studio.
Even while all these extraordinary events were taking place the organizers’ hopes for the turnout to the piano competition were modest as it was only first year event. “We thought, if we get ten (entries) we’ll be happy. If we get 20, we’ll be ecstatic. We got 29,” Filice said emphatically.
And, even as the grand piano fell silent and the applause died down, plans were already in the making for next year’s competition. It will feature guest pianists from around the world as well as guitar ensembles, and jazz and blues workshops. Ultimately, Marques and Amirkhanian would like to make Gavilan a “hotbed for piano players,” Marques said. With the new funding in place, the department will be able to amp up the performance element of it’s curriculum by offering four concerts a year. According to Marques, the performing element of music education is critical because it is “how you reach out to the community.” Taking stock of the past year and all the hopeful plans for the year to come Marques smiled and said, “we’ve been very blessed.”
If the fortissimo applause is any indication then the Marian Filice Youth Piano Competition and the Rudy Melone Fund for Music and the Arts are the beginning of something big.
If you are interested in contributing to the Rudy Melone Fund for Music and the Arts. Make your check in any amount out to Gilroy Foundation/Rudy Melone Fund and mail to Gilroy Foundation, P.O. Box 774, Gilroy, CA 95021. The Gilroy Foundation is a 501 (c)3 non-profit. For more information contact Tim Filice at 847-4224 ext. 109.
