Students awarded in Tri-County Annual Youth Festival

By Brittany Roker, Community Relations Editor

One successfully sung to the top, achieving a goal she has been working for ever since she was a freshman. Another put all of his energy into performing for an event for the first time. The last received second place in a highly competitive division, senior strings.  All three participated in the annual Tri-County Youth Festival’s competition on April 14 at Immaculata University.

The competition included middle school and high school students from the Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties in Southeastern Pennsylvania.  These students were able to compete in a variety of categories in the junior (middle school) and senior (high school) divisions, including ensemble, piano, strings, voice and winds.  Along with the other winners of the competition, senior Laura McCauley and sophomores Michael Mei and Mike Sha will perform at the festival on May 19 at Montgomery County Community College.

McCauley, a third year participant, won first place in senior voice and said she was happy to be awarded with this honor.

“It was really exciting for me to win first place,” McCauley said. “The first time I competed, I got honorable mention, and that was when I was a freshman. Winning is awesome.”

To prepare for the competition, McCauley said she spent the majority of her time practicing.

“One of the pieces, I had used for my college auditions, and another piece, I practiced a lot,” McCauley said.

Another ‘Stoga participant, Mei, received first place for senior piano.  For Mei, it was his first year taking part in the event. He said that going into the competition, he was not thinking of getting first place.

“I know I got recognition for the amount of work I put into it.” Mei said. “I wasn’t really thinking about whether I was going to get first place. That’s not really what I think about.”

Like McCauley, Mei also dedicated his time to practicing for the competition.

“I just had to make sure I put everything I got into the piece and when I was at the piano [to] just let it all go,” Mei said.

Mei said he also wanted to commend the work the other students put into the competition.

“I want to congratulate all of the contesters too because they definitely put an equally amount of work into it too,” Mei said.  “They worked really hard at getting their pieces ready.  Everybody who participated definitely did a great job.”

Brittany Roker can be reached at broker@stoganews.com.