The Alternative Press

Wharton Music Center (WMC) is pleased to announce that student cellist Christopher Liang was awarded second place in the 2013 Little Mozart Competition and will perform at Carnegie Hall on Sunday, April 7 at 8:00 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at www.carnegiehall.com.

The Little Mozart Competition is an annual music competition open to junior and intermediate levels of instrumentalists, vocalists, and duets. Winners perform at Carnegie Hall in New York, Caldwell College in New Jersey, and Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall at Longy School of Music in Massachusetts. All participants receive certificates of participation.

For the competition, Christopher Liang played Bernhard Romberg’s Sonata in E Minor. Christopher has been studying cello with instructor Alice Hamlet at WMC for five years. He is also a member of the Junior Strings Ensemble at New Jersey Youth Sympathy (NJYS). In addition to his involvement with NJYS and WMC, Christopher plays alto saxophone in his school band, golf, and tennis and is a Blue Belt student in the Leadership Program at the Elite Toma Tae-Kwon Do School. Christopher is currently in sixth grade at Brooklaw Middle School in Parsippany.  

Wharton Music Center, located at 60 Locust Avenue in Berkeley Heights, provides music, theater, and dance instruction, educational programs, and performances for children, teens, and adults. In addition to instruction in all instruments and voice, WMC offers classes in musical theater, dance, drama, choral music, vocal music, music theory, audio recording, early childhood music, and music for children with special needs. Offering a range of musical genres including classical, rock, jazz, and blues, WMC is one of New Jersey’s largest independent non-profit community music centers serving students in Union, Morris, Essex, Somerset, and other surrounding counties.

New Jersey Youth Symphony, the orchestral and ensemble organization of Wharton Music Center (WMC), offers music education for grades 3 through 12. NJYS is located at 570 Central Avenue in New Providence. NJYS, one of the foremost youth orchestras in the state, has ten orchestras and ensembles for which auditions are held annually. NJYS’s premiere orchestra, Youth Symphony, has performed in internationally-renowned concert halls such as Carnegie Hall in New York City and Musikverein in Vienna.

The mission of Wharton Music Center, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, is to advance excellence and education in the performing arts. For more information, visit www.NJYS.org or www.WhartonMusicCenter.org.