For Hometown News
VERO BEACH --
Vero Beach Opera has awarded piano scholarships to three Vero Beach High School students, each for a year of study with Marcos Daniel Flores.
The scholarships began in summer 2012 and will continue through spring 2013. Two recipients, Alex Jasmim, 16, and Melina Zohn, 16, received scholarships last year and are continuing their studies. Jeffrey Lamothe, 16, was awarded a scholarship for the first time.
Recipients were selected from students who submitted applications with recommendations from their music teachers, and who were then invited to audition before Mr. Flores and members of the piano scholarship committee.
"We were pleased to receive such impressive applications," said Patricia Sawyer, chairwoman of the piano scholarship committee.
"This year most of the applicants had been studying piano or other musical instruments for a number of years or had been singing in auditioned choruses."
Mr. Flores is a highly regarded concert pianist with more than 25 years of teaching experience. In addition to his own concert schedule, he serves as the organist/pianist and director of worship arts at Christ by the Sea Methodist Church in Vero Beach.
Vero Beach Opera offers piano scholarships each year to a limited number of talented young students who show great promise and commitment to the study of piano, have limited or insufficient personal or parental resources in order to pursue the study and mastery of the piano, and who live on the Treasure Coast.
Students older than 18 who qualify under these requirements and are currently enrolled in an academy, conservatory, institute or university studying piano also are eligible. May 1, 2013 is the deadline for applications for the piano scholarship program for the coming year.
The piano scholarships are funded solely by contributions from individual donors. To make a tax-deductible donation to the fund, please send a check made out to "Vero Beach Opera Inc." with "piano scholarship" in the memo field and mail it to: Vero Beach Opera, P. O. Box 6912, Vero Beach, FL 32961.
For more about the piano scholarship program, visit www.VeroBeachOpera.org or call (772) 569-6993.