MTNA Performance Competition News

Dear Members,

I thought you’d like to know who some of our MTNA Competition judges will be. Please be sure to avoid using these individuals in your upcoming events. More will come as I know them. Here is what we know as of now:

Piano Division:
Steven Beus, Charlie Albright, Isabella Jie

String Division:
Ruth Marie Ballance, Jared Ballance

A few other thoughts – the MTNA website will be updated with dates and times hopefully by June. Our dates are November 9-11 (this year the holiday lands on a Monday), at Central Washington University. I have had several students reach out to me asking when they can register. Registration should open in August.

Also in MTNA news, there will only be two tiers for Voice and Brass divisions this year. The Preliminary Round will be by video submission only; and the Final Round will be live at the MTNA National Conference. Entrants will compete without regard to the state or division in which they live or take lessons, and seven will be selected in both the Brass and Voice categories from a nationwide pool of applicants to compete in the final round.There was so much strife over finding accompanists that were available at the State level, and so few entries in these divisions, that the program has been streamlined.

Other exciting news: Dr. Stephen Beus has agreed to give a mini recital and masterclass on either Friday (before the competition), or on Monday after the competition. We will be soliciting for students to play for him once we know how registration is going. This will only be available to students who are NOT playing in the MTNA competition. More on this later!

Julie Swienty, NCTM
WSMTA-MTNA Performance Chair