Students from Ronald Reagan High School, Brennan High School, Smithson Valley High School, and Brackenridge High School all took first place awards at Texas Public Radio’s third annual “SOUNDS LIKE KPAC” talent competition this Saturday, held at McAllister Auditorium on the campus of San Antonio College.
The First Place winners in each category were:
SOLO MUSICIAN
Jeremiah Guillen, Brennan HS
ENSEMBLE MUSICIANS
Quid Nunc Saxophone Quartet, Reagan HS
VISUAL ART
Christina Bender, Brackenridge HS
WRITTEN WORD
Silas Hannemann, Smithson Valley HS
All of the musical performances, as well as interviews with select contestants, will be broadcast on KPAC 88.3 FM on Saturday, February 11 at 7 p.m. on “Performance Saturday,” Texas Public Radio’s weekly showcase of great performances from the stages of south central Texas. You can hear them online in the Soundcloud link below.
The First Place winners in each category were awarded a $1,000 cash prize, funded by the Flohr Foundation and Dr. Lindsay Irvin of Alamo Heights Pediatrics (the Ensemble winner was awarded $2,400 total.), with additional support from Rev. Clifford and Elizabeth Waller, Veronica Prida and Omar Rodriguez, Pamela Fitzsimmons Howard, and Dr. Jatin Patel. First Place winners also received a year’s supply of Whataburger, courtesy of the San Antonio-based chain.
Second and Third Place winners in the Solo Musician category were Mikayla Simonsen and Aidan Alcocer. Second and Third Place winners in the Ensemble Musician category were Cloud 9 String Quartet and the Haydn Seek String Quartet. Second and Third Place winners in the Visual Art category were Soren Dickson and Jimmy Castillo. Second and Third Place winners in the Visual Art category were Emma Brian and Isaiah Dickson.
Congratulations to all of the winners!
SOUNDS LIKE KPAC was sponsored by Texas Lutheran University, Mid-Texas Symphony, Terra Nova Violins, and San Antonio College.
2017 WRITTEN WORD WINNER
A Ticket By Silas Hannemann I received a ticket. My destination is a place no train, bus, or plane can reach. I would travel any distance to go to the untouched land composed, In Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 in F major, opus 68. A wide expanse of pure, ruthless nature where one can return to the most basic experience of humanity, This Xanadu represents the simplest form of the world. Whispering grass, serenading birds, proud, roaring waterfalls, and relentless stentorian thunder, All just over the dynamic horizon all coexisting in a harmonious scene I can only imagine. A paradise far from society's expectations, human influence, stereotyping, prejudice, bias, and norm, Where everything is original. I wouldn't go into the Pastoral Symphony to necessarily find a new way of life. Instead, my purpose there would be to observe. To wander and wonder. To find a tree, to examine its leaves, to feel its bark, to hear it murmur through its leaves, to smell the faint scent of pollen, to taste the freshness of the air. To sit on a mysteriously placed seat of boulders and to ponder the juxtaposition of the playful sound of The bubbling stream and the ominous booming of a faraway thunderstorm. I would search every stone, Every grass blade, Every flower, Every tree, Every stream, Every river, Every cloud And storm And image And thought And everything I could possibly conceptualize for a meaning, For a theme, For a way to break the ever repeating wheel of fortune. I want to create something entirely new.