CSMTA Concerto Competition
Winners’ Concert
Saturday, May 10, 2025
8:00 – 9:00 PM
Boulder Adventist Church
Bahman Saless
conductor
featuring winners of the
2025 CSMTA Concert Competition:
Natalie Ouyang - Piano
Lucy (Yuze) Chen - Piano
Bobby Yuan - Piano
Sadie Rhodes Han - Violin
Program
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)
Keyboard Concerto in C Major, Hob. XVIII/5 (ca. 1763)
I. Allegro moderato
Natalie Ouyang - Piano
Elementary Piano Division Winner
W. A. Mozart (1756–1791)
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467 (1785)
I. Allegro maestoso
Lucy (Yuze) Chen - Piano
Junior Piano Division Winner
Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54 (1841–45)
I. Allegro affettuoso
Bobby Yuan - Piano
Senior Piano Division Winner
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921)
Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 28 (1863)
Sadie Rhodes Han - Violin
Strings/Harp Winner
About the Artists
Natalie Ouyang
Piano
Natalie Ouyang has been studying piano since the age of 4 with Ms. Jasmine Steadman. She is now 8 years old, who attends American Academy Castle Pines as a 3rd grader.
Under the guidance of Ms. Jasmine’s dedicated teaching, Natalie has challenged herself with many piano repertoires from classical to contemporary era. She has fell in love with the musical works of composers shaped by the environments of different periods and their distinctive style of musical interpretation. Natalie is passionate and fully immerses herself in music while performing on stage, hopes to convey a variety of emotions to the audience through her playing. Currently, she has great opportunities to perform in school and fundraising events. Meanwhile, as the youngest member of Musicians United for Change, she wishes each of her performance could inspire unity and hope through music. Natalie wishes to deepen and expand her knowledge of piano with her teacher in the future and dreams to be a pianist.
Natalie has participated in numerous competitions and concerts including being the youngest 1st place winner of Yamaha Piano Competition Advanced Competitive Division I in 2024. She was also placed the 3rd in XV Chopin International Piano Competition in Hartford, CT 2024, 10 and under division as one of the youngest contestants. At age of 6 in 2023, Natalie has won 1st place at CSMTA Rising Star Competition lower elementary division and 1st place at Yamaha Piano Competition Advanced Competitive Division I.
At age of 7, Natalie as the featured pianist, has performed Mozart concerto No.19, 1st mvmt with National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge. During the same year, she was invited to the “Prodigy & Protégé Concert” in Fort Collins as the youngest piano soloist, she was also truly honored to become the featured magazine cover for “Asian Avenue Magazine”.
In addition to piano, Natalie enjoys playing golf, swimming and recreational tennis with her twin brother. Her favorite school subjects are math, literacy and history. In her leisure time, she loves building LEGOs, creating crafts and riding on her dad’s ATV to explore the wild animals in the backyard.
Lucy (Yuze) Chen
Piano
Lucy Chen began playing the piano at the age of six and has received professional training both in China and the United States. In China, she studied under Ms. Yanling Lou, and upon returning to the U.S. in August 2023, she continued her musical journey under the guidance of Ms. Jasmine Lee Steadman. Throughout her musical career, Lucy has achieved notable success in various competitions. While she had impressive accomplishments in past competitions in China, she has continued to excel in the U.S., participating in prestigious events such as the Yamaha Competition, the Rising Star Competition, and the MTNA Junior Performance Competition of Colorado. Furthermore, Lucy proudly represents Colorado along with six other states in the Midwest region and was named an alternate in the West Central Division MTNA Junior Performance Competition.
Currently a 9th-grade student at Cherry Creek High School, Lucy is passionate about learning and considers history her favorite subject. Beyond music, she enjoys a variety of creative pursuits, including painting, dancing, and photography. She sees herself as a storyteller who expresses emotions and narratives through the piano, bringing music to life with every Performance. Lucy is thrilled to receive the opportunity of working with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra and looks forward to showcasing her artistry on stage.
Bobby Yuan
Piano
Bobby Yuan, 14, is currently in 9th grade attending Peak to Peak Charter School in Lafayette, CO. At age 6, he began taking piano lessons from his mother, Mrs. Yi Ding. Since May 2022, he has been studying piano with Dr. Jennifer Hayghe from the University of Colorado Boulder. Bobby was the first-place winner of the Schmitt Music 2023 Piano Competition (Division II) and the 2024 Colorado State MTA Piano Concerto Competition (Junior Division), resulting in a concerto performance with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra. He was also awarded the first prize at the 2025 Rising stars Festival and was named the Alternate (or 2nd place) Winner of the Colorado State MTNA 2024 Junior Performance Piano Competition. He loves music by Bach, Mozart, Schumann and Brahms, and enjoys sharing the gift of music with others. Bobby also likes to play violin, basketball and chess.
Sadie Rhodes Han
Violin
Sadie Rhodes Han began her violin studies with Margaret Gutierrez at the age of 4. She currently studies with Claude Sim, Associate Concertmaster of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Sadie’s first public performance with an orchestra was at the age of 10. In 2022 and 2023, she attended the Lamont Summer Academy where she was chosen to perform on the honors solo and chamber recitals in both years as she studied with Igor Pikayzen and Linda Wang. In 2024 she attended the Ascent Chamber Music Festival studying with Desiree Ruhstrat and Rictor Noran.
Sadie has attended Denver School of the Arts since the 6th grade and serves as concertmaster including while on a performance tour of Italy in the spring of 2024, where the orchestra performed in Rome, Florence and Venice. She placed 3rd in the Lakewood (CO) Symphony Concerto Competition in 2023 and 2024 and won 1st prize in the Broomfield (CO) Symphony Orchestra Young Artists Concerto Competition High School division and the Denver Young Artists Orchestra Concerto Competition, both in 2024. She performed the Bruch Violin Concerto in G minor with both orchestras last spring. In early 2025, Sadie was featured on violin in 2 separate productions of the musical Hadestown, one entirely student led and most recently won the Denver School of the Arts Concerto Competition and will perform the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor this May.
When she is not playing violin, Sadie also enjoys playing the piano and guitar, traveling with her family, baking cakes, and watching old movies with her mom and 2 dogs.
Program Notes
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)
Keyboard Concerto in C Major, Hob. XVIII/5 (ca. 1763)
Composed in the mid-1760s, Haydn’s Keyboard Concerto in C Major, Hob. XVIII/5 offers an early example of the Classical concerto emerging from the galant tradition. The first movement, Allegro moderato, adheres to a ritornello-sonata hybrid form characteristic of mid-century concertos, balancing the structural clarity of sonata principles with the sectional returns and contrasts typical of the earlier ritornello style.
The orchestral ritornello introduces the primary thematic material with clarity and vigor, establishing a bright, C-major tonality and rhythmic buoyancy that persists throughout the movement. Haydn’s handling of the solo and tutti textures is both economical and inventive; the solo keyboard passages engage in active dialogue with the ensemble rather than merely dominating it. The soloist’s entry reframes the opening themes with ornamented variation, reflecting the improvisatory aesthetic expected of contemporary performers.
The development section explores closely related tonal areas, favoring thematic fragmentation over extensive modulation. Haydn’s motivic economy is particularly evident here, as brief rhythmic and melodic figures are reworked with surprising inventiveness. The recapitulation reaffirms the movement’s symmetry, though not without subtle changes that suggest a performer’s sensitivity to detail and nuance. Overall, the movement illustrates Haydn’s growing confidence in instrumental rhetoric and foreshadows the more sophisticated concerto writing of his later years.
Program Notes by Reginald Winters
W. A. Mozart (1756–1791)
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467 (1785)
Premiered in Vienna in 1785, the Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467, exemplifies Mozart’s mature concerto style, combining formal elegance with dramatic intensity. The opening movement, Allegro maestoso, is expansive in scale and symphonic in conception, revealing the composer’s mastery of orchestral color, harmonic pacing, and thematic integration.
The orchestral exposition unfolds with grandeur, presenting a martial C-major theme punctuated by syncopations and dynamic contrasts. Unlike earlier Classical concertos, Mozart resists introducing the soloist too early, instead allowing the orchestra to establish a complete thematic landscape. The piano enters not with overt virtuosity, but with a refined paraphrase of the orchestral material—an approach that underscores Mozart’s preference for integration over confrontation.
The movement’s sonata form is enriched by complex dialogue between soloist and orchestra, subtle motivic transformations, and a highly lyrical second theme. Tonal contrast and expressive shading are treated with great finesse, particularly in the modulating passages that explore distant key areas without undermining structural coherence. The cadenza—typically improvised or composed by the performer—offers a moment of rhetorical summation before the final ritornello reasserts the work’s ceremonial character.
While often praised for its elegance, the movement is equally notable for its undercurrents of tension, which emerge through chromatic inflections and dynamic interplay. In this way, Mozart navigates the Classical balance between formal clarity and expressive depth, rendering the Allegro maestoso a model of concerto writing at its most sophisticated.
Program Notes by Reginald Winters
Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54 (1841–45)
The Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54, completed in its final form in 1845, stands as Schumann’s only completed work in the genre and represents a significant contribution to the Romantic concerto tradition. The first movement, Allegro affettuoso, resists the virtuosic display often associated with 19th-century concertos, instead offering an intimate and lyrical discourse between soloist and orchestra. Originally conceived as a one-movement Phantasie, the work retains a tightly integrated structure and expressive coherence that reflects its roots in character piece aesthetics.
The movement opens with a striking orchestral gesture—an abrupt A minor chord followed by a passionate solo flourish—which immediately dissolves the boundary between exposition and development. Rather than following a conventional double exposition format, Schumann blends thematic statements and developmental episodes from the outset, creating a through-composed architecture that mirrors the emotional unfolding of a Lied ohne Worte.
Throughout the movement, thematic material is closely interwoven between solo and orchestral voices. The principal theme, lyrical and inward, undergoes continual transformation, often shifting in character rather than reappearing in static repetition. Dialogic textures dominate, with Schumann favoring subtle interplay over bravura display. Even the climactic passages are shaped more by harmonic intensity and rhythmic urgency than by technical flamboyance.
The Allegro affettuoso concludes not with a triumphant flourish, but with a sense of poetic resolution, as if the concerto were less a dramatic contest than a conversation shaped by memory, longing, and quiet affirmation. In this movement, Schumann reimagines the concerto as an expressive partnership, aligning his Romantic ideals with a refined structural control inherited from Classical models.
Program Notes by Reginald Winters
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921)
Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 28 (1863)
Originally composed in 1863 for the virtuoso violinist Pablo de Sarasate, Saint-Saëns’ Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso occupies a unique place within the 19th-century violin repertoire. Though frequently treated as a showpiece, the work balances technical brilliance with structural clarity and a refined lyricism that reflects the composer’s Classical sensibilities.
The Introduction, marked Andante malinconico, opens in A minor with a restrained, almost brooding character. The violin’s expressive entry unfolds over gently pulsing orchestral harmonies, setting an introspective tone that contrasts sharply with the exuberance to follow. Rather than serving merely as a prelude, the introduction presents motivic ideas that will be transformed and reinterpreted throughout the work.
The transition into the Rondo capriccioso is seamless and theatrical, marked by a sudden increase in tempo and a shift to A major. The principal theme, light and rhythmically playful, exemplifies the "capricious" spirit promised in the title. Saint-Saëns uses rondo form not as a rigid template but as a framework for variation and virtuosic elaboration. Each return of the refrain is ornamented or harmonically recontextualized, showcasing the violinist’s agility through rapid passagework, double stops, and flying harmonics.
Yet, the piece is more than a vehicle for technical display. Its orchestration is lean and transparent, allowing for moments of delicate interplay between soloist and ensemble. Melodic ideas are clearly shaped, and the harmonic language—while rooted in tonality—frequently veers toward unexpected modulations, lending the work an air of spontaneity and elegance.
The Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso remains one of Saint-Saëns’ most beloved works for solo instrument and orchestra, admired not only for its brilliance but also for its poise, balance, and unmistakable French charm.
Program Notes by Reginald Winters