Festival's star sees a future with his cello
by Bruce Bartlett - Monday, May 3, 2010
Peter Walsh/Telegraph-Journal
This article is courtesy of Telegraph Journal
SAINT JOHN - A Grade 12 Saint John High School student, who plans to study music next year at Dalhousie University, was named star of the 74th annual New Brunswick Competitive Festival of Music, Saturday night.
Benjamin Marmen was named the Star of Festival at the 74th Annual N.B. Competitive Festival of Music on Saturday at Saint John High School. Benjamin Marmen walked way with the top prize of $1,500 as well as the Founder's Trophy after performing in both the intermediate and senior divisions of the competition.
Marmen started playing both the violin and piano when he was five years old. The next year he started with the cello and also first performed in the music festival at the age of six.
He is a member of Symphony New Brunswick and often plays cello with pianist Tim Blackmore in Baroque concerts.
"In university I hope to learn how to become a better performer, to have a better stage presence," he said. "I also want to get a really good foundation in my cello technique."
He is not sure what genre of music he will end up playing but he knows for sure the cello will be part of his life. He has been taking lessons from Shimon Walt, a teacher in the music department at Dalhousie, driving to Halifax every few weeks. And the university has offered him a scholarship for the music program.
In the senior competition he produced amazing sounds on his cello while performing a piece by Spanish composer Pablo De Sarasate. In the intermediate competition Marmen performed a piece of his own composition, called The Clearing. It was an ensemble piece with Marmen on the cello accompanied by Zoë Caddell on the accordion.
"I was fortunate enough to take IB (International Baccalaureate) music this year at school and part of the curriculum for that is composing three pieces," he said. "I love composing but I don't often get the chance to do it for school."
Marmen, who says music makes him feel human, had no idea he was in the running for the top prize.
"You can know what you are doing on stage, but you don't know how other people are hearing it," he said.
The second prize of $1,000 in the senior competition went to Owen McCausland, a second-year music student at Dalhousie University, who sang a piece from Puccini's opera Tosca as well as a piece by German composer Robert Schumann. McCausland is the son of well-known city music teachers, Bob McCausland and Helen Gollings.
Third prize of $500 went to Jaekwon Chong, a Grade 12 student at Bernice McNaughton High School in Moncton.
The winner of the $500 first prize in the intermediate competition was Kelly An, a Grade 9 student at Kennebecasis Valley High School who played a spirited version from the first movement of Mozart's Sonata in G Major. She studies under Roger Lord, a music professor at the Université de Moncton.
"I am very thankful for my music teacher and my mom who helped me with practising," she said.
Second and third places in the intermediate competition went to Margie Christ and Peter Cho.
Next year the New Brunswick Competitive Festival of Music, which is open to all competitors, will be celebrating its 75th anniversary.