Aleksandra Kasman, a University of Alabama at Birmingham sophomore in the Honors Program, won the Alabama Music Teachers National Association Collegiate Young Artist auditions held in Auburn, Alabama, Oct. 31-Nov. 1.
Kasman, a music major, will now represent Alabama at the MTNA Southern Division auditions and face eight competitors in Knoxville, Tennessee, in January. The winner will go on to the MTNA National Competition to be held in the spring.
The MTNA hosts this annual competition, which is held first at the state level, then at the division level and, ultimately, nationally. The MTNA has seven divisions in the country; Alabama is in the Southern division, which includes nine states.
Kasman played works by Bach, Debussy, Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich. Her competitors were from Auburn University, the University of Alabama and the University of Montevallo.
Kasman studies piano in the UAB Department of Music with her father, Professor of Piano Yakov Kasman. In his 13 years at UAB, Yakov Kasman says his students have won this prestigious competition at the state level nine times.
His younger daughter, Dina, a ninth-grader at Vestavia Hills High School, won the Alabama MTNA Junior auditions, and will also travel with her father and sister to the Southern Division auditions to compete.