Congratulations to our music faculty for a splendid evening of music and voice at yesterday’s Fairfax, Spotlight on the Arts festival performance. Our theme this year was music from film and television.
Pieces ranged from the main theme of Interstellar, performed by Dr. Nayoon Choi on flute and Dr. Estrella Hong accompanying on piano, to a selection of pieces from Star Wars and The Hobbit, performed by a guitar trio of Geoff Sawyer, Brian Slaymaker, and Hang Yin.
This year was our highest attendance to date with 150 attendees! We look forward to more performances by our faculty in the future and we hope to see you for next year’s Spotlight performance.
This performance was made possible with the generous support of the City of Fairfax Commission on the Arts.
Summer Piano Academy Scholarship Gala Concert
February 28 at 7 p.m
United Christian Parish
11508 N Shore Dr
Reston, VA 20190
Message from the director, Dr. Misha Tumanov:
Join us in celebrating Mason Summer Piano Academy’s (MSPA) 10th anniversary with a wonderful evening of piano music, featuring MSPA faculty, alumni, and students! MSPA is a week-long comprehensive music experience for dedicated and passionate piano students. For 10 years, MSPA has been the highlight of many piano students’ summer—we have had over 200 students over the years join us for an inspiring week fully immersed in music. Now more than ever, we need your help in supporting these wonderful young pianists to ensure that we can keep our program accessible and inclusive while enhancing the quality of the MSPA experience year after year.
The concert will be held at United Christian Parish in Reston, Virginia, and live-streamed via YouTube on the Mason Community Arts Academy channel. Admission is free, with a suggested donation of $20. All donations will go towards student scholarships for the Mason Summer Piano Academy, which will take place at George Mason University on June 23–27, 2025.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, of course! After months of dedicated preparation, nine piano students from the Mason Community Arts Academy (MCAA) performed at the legendary Carnegie Hall in New York on October 21. MCAA students have been participating annually in this international event organized by the Instituto Superior de Artes of Costa Rica since 2019. This year’s participants Kiran Das, Eva Gafurova, Jakin Jordan-Brangman, Ryan Miller, Michael Nguyen, Lucas Schnotala, Nicholas Stavrou, Audrey Tan and Margo Xiao, performed music by a wide variety of composers, ranging from Burgmüller and Clementi to Chopin and Debussy.
It was a bustling weekend for the students and their teachers, Masha Feygelson and Dr. Misha Tumanov, who traveled to support them in New York. While many students left for New York City after school on Friday (arriving late in the evening), and had a 9 a.m. dress rehearsal ahead of Saturday’s afternoon concert, they were able to spend the rest of the weekend enjoying the city through sight-seeing, visiting museums, or catching a Broadway show. Inspired by the historic venue, our students demonstrated an exceptional level of preparation and musicianship. Congratulations to all the performers on this extraordinary achievement!
Quotes from parents and students:
It has been wonderful to watch our daughter grow as a musician and a person from participating in the Carnegie Hall concerts. Working on a few pieces for a big performance has pushed her to develop her artistry and discipline. While piano is often one of the more solitary instruments, events like this bring together a community of kids at all different levels. We enjoy watching everyone perform and the older students are an inspiration for the younger ones. She is also learning so many skills that go beyond the piano — like persistence, hard work and staying calm under pressure. Plus it’s a lot of fun to spend a weekend in NYC!
Thank you so much for giving me the chance to perform at Carnegie Hall for the first time; I feel so lucky and honored. The piano was amazing and the sound filled the hall beautifully! This is one of the best memories in my student life.
Performing at Carnegie Hall has been an incredibly enriching experience for my daughter. She has done it three times starting when she was just 8 years old. Even though she did not know what Carnegie Hall was during that first trip, she could feel the magnificence and musical importance of the venue. I could see her being inspired to rise to the occasion and do her best with confidence. To this day, her best performance each year is when she is playing at Carnegie. It is as if all the history of musical excellence shared on this esteemed stage, along with the support of a great audience during these recitals promote her music to the next level. It’s always an unforgettable experience for all of us — and we always celebrate by going to a Broadway musical afterwards.
Congratulations to our piano students, faculty, and family!
Written by Masha Feygelson
Edited by Regina Schneider
MCAA was proud to participate in the annual ARTS by George! celebration on September 28th, presenting a showcase of student work.
Featured were our Spotlight on the Arts scholarship recipient Camryn Carter, a musical theater student under the direction of Adam Lemos and Emi Eiting, performing “Waiting for Life” from the musical Once on this Island. Jakin Jordan-Brangman, a longtime student in Masha Feygelson’s piano studio and another Spotlight on the Arts scholarship recipient, performed Toccata in E-minor. Closing out the presentation was Victoria Hong, a student in Dr. Seon Gyu Park’s voice studio singing “Journey to the Past” from Anastasia, accompanied by esteemed MCAA piano teaching artist Dr. Estrella Hong.
Academy Voice Teaching Artist, Ashlyn Rock (left), performed “Sempre libera” from Verdi’s La Traviata, prior to Lea Salonga’s performance.
ARTS by George! is an important fundraising event for George Mason’s College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA). Proceeds from the event are distributed to CVPA’s academic units, MCAA, and the Green Machine, to help fund scholarships. Our heartfelt thanks to those who attended our showcases, and to all of the evening’s attendees for their generous support of student work.
You can view more photos from the event on our Facebook and Instagram.
