A Year of Adventures on the High Keys for Conservatory Keyboard Students and Graduates by Marci Janas '91
			It has been a high-octane year for keyboard students and recent graduates of the Conservatory. Here is an overview of some recent awards and achievements garnered this past year. Giacomo Battarino AD '02 placed in three major international competitions. He won first prize at the European Music Competition, held in Moncalieri (near Turin), Italy, in October-November 2002.   Joel Corelitz '02, a TIMARA (Technology in Music and the Related Arts) major, was chosen as Keyboard magazine's "Unsigned Artist of the Month" for April 2002.   Mudi Han '06, a piano performance major studying with Professor of Pianoforte Peter Takács, won the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra's (A2SO) Youth Piano Concerto Competition, held in October 2002 at the University of Michigan School of Music's McIntosh Recital Hall.   Spencer Myer '00 won first prize at the 2002 Heida Hermanns International Piano Competition, sponsored by the Connecticut Alliance for Music and held last December in Westport, Connecticut.   Thomas Rosenkranz '99 was one of five pianists selected as finalists for the 2002-03 Classical Fellowship Awards, sponsored by the American Pianists Association.   As part of the award for receiving a top prize at the Eighth International Murray Dranoff Duo Piano Competition in December 2001, Svetlana Smolina '03 will perform later this year with her partner, pianist Maxim Mogilevsky, at New York's Merkin Hall.   Timothy Spelbring '03 received the Ruth and Paul Manz Organ Scholarship for 2002 from the Lutheran School of Theology (LST) at Chicago.   Michael Sponseller '97, AD '00, won first prize in the 2002 Jurow International Harpsichord Competition, sponsored by the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society and held in March 2002 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.   Daniel Sullivan '02 was the featured performer in the recital series of the Chicago Chapter of the American Guild of Organists in April 2002 at Grace Lutheran Church in River Forest, Illinois. Sullivan earned the spot by winning first prize in the 2002 Gruenstein Memorial Organ Competition, sponsored by the Chicago Chapter.   Last January, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra premiered the Scherzo No. 2 in E minor by Herman Whitfield III '06. In February, Whitfield performed his Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra in C-sharp minor-another premiere-with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Indianapolis.
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