Empire State Youth Orchestra concerto competition was two good; violist to perform Sunday

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TROY – The teenage musicians who are part of the Empire State Youth Orchestra family continue to astound, none more than this year.

On Sunday at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, audiences will get to hear why. For the first time in the orchestra’s Lois Lyman Concerto Competition’s history, now in its 38th year, two winners were announced: violist Yu-Heng Wang and pianist William Lauricella. Cellist Liam Sullivan was named runner-up.

“The kids set their own standards, the panel listens, and we hope they’ll rise to a standard … where they can be in front of an orchestra and play,” said Randall Ellis, an oboist/teacher and one of the three-member adjudication panel. “But this year to our delight the competitors were incredibly accomplished and finished, elegant and not just getting through the concertos.”

Twelve musicians competed, each getting 10 minutes to play a segment from their chosen concerto. Lauricella, a junior at Bethlehem Central School, chose Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto and played first.

“He played with such style, grace, and understanding … all the things you hope to hear,” Ellis said. “We thought we had a winner.”
But there were 11 more musicians to hear.

“Then along came the Bartok Viola Concerto … very difficult and Yu-Heng had the chops and he played. . .well, we had a dilemma.”

There had never been two winners before. Rather, it had been one musician who gets to play the entire concerto in the next season with the full ESYO orchestra and a runner-up who played with the repertory orchestra.

“Etienne Abelard [ESYO music director] came in for that final deliberation. Standards are high to represent the piece because both accompaniments are very difficult for the orchestra,” Ellis said. “But it was absolutely clear. There was no controversy.”

Because Wang is a senior at Shenendehowa High School, he’ll get to perform the Bartok on Sunday. Lauricella, who will be a senior in the fall, will play the Rachmaninoff in October.

“I know Will as he’s my current timpanist,” Abelard said. “He’s also an unbelievable marimba player. His teacher told me he’d never heard anything like it. Yu-Heng is the principal violist. He’s an amazing, charismatic, dynamic leader, an exceptional musician. He’s an enormous presence.”

But getting the orchestra prepared with the Bartok was going to be a challenge in itself.

“I was sweating a bit,” Abelard said. “It’s very difficult to play. It’s very chamber music-y with a language that is not your everyday language. There’s lots of rubato, changes in tempo. But the orchestra has grown throughout the year and I think it can handle the demands.”

Wang is thrilled even as he’s very nervous.

“It’s my first time winning a competition. The first time as solo with an orchestra. And I’m the first violist to win this competition,” he said.

That he’s getting this chance to perform solo all goes back to how he first started in grade school.

“It’s nothing profound,” he said laughing. “Initially I wanted to play the biggest instrument and chose bass. But my parents said I’d never get it on the bus. So I chose cello, but that was too big. So then it was viola and that has turned out great.”

He quickly learned that ensembles always had plenty of violinists, even cellists, but very few viola players. As a result, he said, he got to play in a lot of orchestras by the time he was 12. Last year he was named WMHT-FM’s Classical Student Musician of the Month of June.

He chose the Bartok after he decided not to work on the concertos by Paul Hindemith or William Walton.

“I didn’t like it at first. It’s very hard to get into with avant-garde melodies,” Wang said. “But the more I played it and got immersed in it. . .I see how great it is. How much thought went into it. It’s become more tonal with more hearings and I’ve come to like it. It’s technically most challenging and permeates the entire piece.”

Working on the piece also came at a time when he was auditioning for several conservatories. Currently accepted at two of them, including the Eastman School of Music, Wang said he was still deciding.

While this concert will also include Copland’s “Appalachian Spring,” a movement from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, and Li Huanzhi’s “Spring Festival Orchestra,” Lauricella will be watching how the orchestra and Abelard work with a soloist even as he has to play timpani in the Copland. Lauricella has been part of the ESYO’s percussion section for six years, and balances that with his performances on piano and the numerous competitions he enters, many of which he wins.

“I started piano when I was five, but five years later I found I loved watching drummers play and I loved the percussive sounds in music,” he said. “So I began taking drum lessons and joined the school band.”

The transition all “came naturally,” he said, and he enjoyed being able to do both. He’s done so well that he’s been able to study at the pre-college division of the Juilliard School in percussion, and this year he’s been at the pre-college division of the Manhattan School of Music in piano.

Lauricella has also won several competitions including the 2020 Lois Lyman Concerto Competition when he played Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2; the 2022 Young Musicians Chopin Piano Competition; the 2022 Luzerne Music Center’s competition; and recently the MSM pre-college concerto competition. He’s been playing the Rachmaninoff for most of them.

“I felt really inspired to do something new and I wanted to challenge myself,” he said as to why he chose this piece.

Known as one of the most difficult yet enormously romantic works for the piano, Lauricella said he started with the first movement and “spent a lot of time practicing it. Six months ago, I began polishing the second and third movements.”

He said he can hardly wait for October when he’ll get to perform the entire work. As for what comes after high school, he’s keeping his options open as to whether he’ll focus on piano or percussion.

“I’m leaning toward piano as a focus but I’d still like to pursue both,” he said.

Whatever comes for either Wang or Lauricella, Abelard said both “were on track to very successful music careers.”

Empire State Youth Orchestra

WHEN: 3 p.m. Sunday
WHERE: Troy Savings Bank Music Hall
HOW MUCH: $25
MORE INFO: www.esyo.org; 518 273-0038

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