The Inland Northwest Musicians welcome spring this weekend with two concerts.
After competing in the Young Artists Competition in March, four musicians from the Tri-Cities will perform with the Inland Northwest Symphony at 7 p.m. Saturday May 2 at Walla Walla Community College, then at 4 p.m. Sunday May 3 at the Hermiston High School auditorium.
"All four of the them are from Richland," said Concert Master Alice Massey. "So there's something in the water."
The four chosen ones include 11-year-old violinist Ellie Hoffner, 11-year-old pianist Justin Chua, 15-year-old pianist Teresa Zorich and 16-year-old pianist Andrew Hunt.
Zorich, a sophomore at Hanford High School, has been playing piano for nine years under the tutelage of Hania Dec of Richland. Teresa will be performing Mozart Concerto No. 19.
Her younger sister Katie, a seventh-grader at Enterprise Middle School, has performed in the spring concert for the past two years.
"Katie couldn't participate in the same division that she won last year, so she played the viola in the competition this year rather than piano," their father John Zorich said.
While Katie was not selected to perform this year, John is proud of his two daughters for being a part of the 10-year-old organization that performs all over the Northwest.
"An interesting fact about our program is our concerts always have no admission charge," said R. Lee Friese, the music director and conductor. "They're always given free, but we do accept donations."
In their 10 years of existence, the symphony has performed about 230 concerts at more than 60 sites.
"We move around a lot," Friese said. "It's part of our mission to try to take live performance to communities both large and small when we know full well that if we don't, a lot of folks will not get live concerts because they won't get in their cars and drive into the big cities."
Massey explained there's always a lot of excitement working with young people, and she enjoys the enthusiasm they bring.
"To me it's always just so inspiring, especially to see the young musicians performing and realize what dedication they have," she said. "Performing their solo works with an orchestra just gives such a huge added dimension, I think both for the orchestra and the soloist and the audience."
This is the organization's ninth year of Young Artists competition as well as the ninth year they have had winners perform with the orchestra.
"It's really a service," John Zorich said. "They go out to perform to smaller communities around the area who don't normally get a symphony concert or orchestra. Kind of a neat group with a public service mission."
For more information, go to www.inlandnorthwestmusicians.com.
