2017 Honors Recital Features Competition Winners

The Department of Music 2017 Honors Recital will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 23, in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall. The recital features the winners of 2017 Honors Recital Competition held in early March. The competition is open to all students majoring in music at the University of Arkansas and is held each spring.

The winners of this year's competition were Zachariah Davis, bass trombone (student of Cory Mixdorf); Nicholas Liebl, tuba (student of Benjamin Pierce); Ammi Lopez, flute (student of Ronda Mains); Mycah Kettner, guitar (student of Jake Hertzog); Daryl Rojas, piano (student of Jura Margulis); Ismaelena Serrano, soprano (student of Moon-Sook Park); and Carly Sigurdson, piano (student of Jura Margulis). The Honors Recital will include music by Francesco Schira, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Rodney Newton, Omar Acosta, David L. McIntyre, Johannes Möller and Chris Brubeck.

Congratulations to the winners of the 2017 Honors Recital Competition!

Competition Winner Biographies

Soprano Ismaelena Serrano is a first-year graduate vocal performance student and a graduate assistant for the vocal area here at the U of A. She grew up in southern California and received a B.A. in Music from Florida College in Tampa, Florida. During her undergraduate studies, she placed 1st in her division in the National Association of Teachers and Singers' vocal competition three years in a row. She held NAfME officer positions from 2008-2011 and was granted the annual departmental award for Vocalist of the Year in 2009 and Chorus Member of the Year in 2010. Serrano had the privilege of shadowing her voice teacher and choral director, Jon Bassett, for two consecutive years. This included hands-on experience rehearsing ensembles, conducting ensembles in concert and administrative experience in repertoire selection and tour planning. After completion of her studies at Florida College, she began teaching private voice and piano lessons in Dallas, Texas, and built a studio of 50 students. During that time, she was honored to work with Eric Whitacre and The Eric Whitacre Singers and perform with them at Lincoln Center in New York City in March of 2014.

Since coming to the U of A, Serrano has enjoyed being a part of the Schola Cantorum and playing the role of Pamina in the spring production of Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute. She placed 2nd in her division at the state level in this year's National Association of Teachers and Singers' vocal competition, and 3rd place at the regional level. She is grateful to be studying with Moon-Sook Park and looks forward to another year of study at the U of A.

A native of Costa Rica, Daryl Rojas has performed internationally in Nicaragua, Colombia, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States. After graduating from the University of Costa Rica, he pursued further studies at the John N. Corpas University, the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar, and has been an active participant in many summer academies where he coached with many renowned concert pianists. Since 2014, Rojas has been a graduate student of professor Jura Margulis at the U of A where he obtained his Master of Music in piano performance. Currently he is in the final stage of completing a post-graduate performer diploma and also teaches at the Community Music School. His teachers include Sara Feterman, Aleksandr Skliutovsky and Pilar Leyva. Rojas is a passionate musician and piano teacher. 

Nicholas Liebl is a Graduate Assistant for Benjamin Pierce's tuba and euphonium studio, teaching between eight and 12 undergraduates each semester. Originally from Minnesota, Liebl completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He is hoping to perform in a Navy Fleet Band once he graduates from the U of A.

Flutist Ammi Lopez, a native of Mexico, made her debut as a soloist with Penn State Woodwind Symphonic Ensemble at Pennsylvania State University. She has played in prestigious halls such as Alice Tully Hall in NYC and Kimmel Center in Philadelphia with the Penn State Woodwind Ensemble and the Penn State Philharmonic Orchestra. As a versatile performer, she plays Latin American music with the Latin American Music Ensemble at the U of A and is a current member of the University Symphony Orchestra.

As a teaching artist, Lopez participated in the Introductory Lab at Lincoln Center Education to expand her skills, curiosities and experiences as an educator. She served as a teaching assistant at the Teaching Artist Program at Longy School of Music and taught flute lessons at the Upper St. School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the past summer, she coached woodwind ensembles for the Summer Academy program at Longy School of Music and worked as a chaperone and flute player in the National Take a Stand Orchestra as an outreach music program with students from inner cities across the U.S. in collaboration with members from the LA Philharmonic Orchestra.

Lopez has had the privilege to be coached by flute instructors such as Naomi Seidman, Marco Granados and Ronda Mains, her current flute professor at U of A, where she is pursuing a Master's Degree while working as a teaching assistant. In addition to her preparation, Lopez has attended master classes with international soloists such as Marina Piccinini, Leone Buyse, Bonita Boyd, Lorna McGhee and Susan Milan. Lopez has been the recipient of the Ted Twohig Memorial Flute scholarship, the Pennsylvania and the Carmen C. Fenza Memorial scholarship at Pennsylvania State University. 

Carly Sigurdson was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, where she began taking piano lessons at the age of 7. She has performed across Canada and the United States, as well as in Germany, Poland and Spain. She received her Bachelor of Music at the University of Victoria and a Master of Music from Texas Tech University. Sigurdson currently attends the U of A, where she is pursuing a Post Graduate Performance Diploma under professor Jura Margulis. Her principal teachers include Jamie Syer, William Westney and Raul Velasco. Sigurdson is also very passionate about teaching and has taught piano, theory and history under the Royal Conservatory of Music program for more than 14 years. 

Mycah Kettner is from Fayetteville, Arkansas. She is pursuing a B.A. in Music with an emphasis in classical guitar and violin. During her first two years, she studied classical guitar at the university with James Greeson prior to his retirement in May 2015. She currently studies guitar at the university with Jake Hertzog and violin with Paulo Eskitch. She also studied violin with Er-Gene Kahng. She began taking lessons at an early age for both violin and guitar at the Suzuki Music School of Arkansas where she studied classical guitar with William Reyes for more than 10 years.

Kettner is a classical guitar instructor at the Suzuki Music School of Arkansas. In addition to teaching private lessons since August 2014, she also leads the guitar ensemble and acts as the guitar instructor for the Instrumental Explorers Program. Kettner also teaches guitar and ukulele at the U of A Community Music School.

Zachariah Davis is a Masters of Music student in trombone performance and also serves as the teaching assistant at the U of A. His primary teachers include Cory Mixdorf, James T. Decker, Christopher J. Smith and Dominick Castadonte.

Prior to his enrollment at the U of A, Davis graduated with a degree in Music Education from Texas Tech University. Davis has performed professionally with the Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra, Opera Fayetteville, Midland-Odessa Symphony and Chorus, Lubbock Symphony Orchestra, Lubbock Moonlight Musicals and the Roswell Symphony Orchestra. 

After graduating from the U of A, Davis will begin his doctoral study at the University of North Texas while serving as a Teaching Fellow for the trombone studio.