BOSTON – After being chosen from a pool of nearly 100 applicants, the five winners of the Fidelity Investments Young Artists Competition got the opportunity to perform on stage with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops in front of a sold-out audience Tuesday night.
“That was amazing,” recent Billerica High School graduate Jack Haroutunian shortly after getting off stage. “That was crazy. It was weird to be on that stage and see people in front of me because this morning, I did it with an empty audience, and that was insane in its own right but to have a full house in Symphony Hall is insane.”
The five winners were Haroutunian, Simona Karadoneva from Newton North High School, Brian Lee from Belmont Hill, William Ge from Phillips Academy Andover, and Aika Oki from Brookline High School. They went through weeks of training with Keith Lockhart and the BSO staff to improve their craft.
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Guster performs with Boston Pops, winners of Fidelity Young Artists Competition at Symphony Hall CBS Boston
They played violin, cello, piano, and sang – all talents well beyond their young teenage years. Personally introduced by Keith Lockhart, each got the chance to perform as a soloist with the Pops.
“It’s just so cool to be able to play for all these people and as well I think this is one of the first concerts that I actually have gotten to play for my friends, so I was actually looking for them in the audience,” William Ge told WBZ. “This is at a whole new level just because of the size of the hall and the resonance and the sheer amount of people. It’s just amazing.”
Following their solo performances, once the nerves had cleared, the high schoolers performed with the alternative rock band Guster as well as with the Pops. “Definitely the fun part,” Simona Karadoneva said. “I feel much more relieved. I feel really happy…to perform with Guster.”
WBZ is a proud media sponsor of the Fidelity Investments Young Artists Competition.