Kasman won first place for her performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1 at the Alabama Music Teachers Association’s State Collegiate Piano Concerto Auditions. The auditions were held at Samford University on March 14 and winners qualified for the AMTA’s upcoming state conference in Tuscaloosa in June.
Kasman also won first place in the piano auditions for the Birmingham Music Club’s scholarship competition at Birmingham-Southern College on March 29. Her winning piano performance garnered her the Mildred Volentine Green $1,500 scholarship, to be used during the upcoming 2014-2015 academic year at an accredited college in the state of Alabama. Kasman performed Bach’s Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 13, and Shostakovich’s Prelude and Fugue No. 15, Op. 87.
She went on to receive Best Performance honors at the same competition, receiving an additional $1,000 scholarship. First-place winners of the scholarship auditions will perform at the spring luncheon of the Guild of the Birmingham Music Club on April 11.
“These competitions feature the best music students from all of the universities and colleges in Alabama,” says Kasman’s father and instructor, Professor of Piano Yakov Kasman, D.M.A. “Winning of any of it is quite a honor.”
UPDATE
At the April 5 AMTA solo auditions in Tuscaloosa, Aleksandra was one of the winners in the Lower Division and a recipient of the Dorothy and Kelcey Trotter Award for Best Overall Performance.In addition, music student Davis Grimes also won in the AMTA Lower Division.
By Julie Keith