The American Harp Society Foundation has announced winners in the 2016 Anne Adams Awards and Grandjany Memorial Competition. Founded in 1993, the American Harp Society Foundation “provides a legacy for the future of the American Harp Society,” according to the organization’s website. Among its competition and foundation missions, the organization sponsored the 2016 Anne Adams Awards and Grandjany Memorial Competition (read more). The winners are:
Anne Adams Awards
Anna Shiaoyuan Ellsworth
Dana Schneider
Anya Garipoli
Grandjany Memorial Competition
Anna Dunlap
“The American Harp Society Foundation is very proud of all the 2016 Anne Adams Awards and Grandjany Memorial Competition winners and finalists,” said the organization. “Kudos to each of the teachers who sent forward such excellent and beautifully prepared candidates. The AHS Foundation is deeply grateful to those who helped sponsor the Competitions and Awards: the American HarpSociety, American HarpSociety Foundation, Lyon & Healy Harps, Salvi Harps, DePauw University, and Vanderbilt Music.”
About the Winners
Anna Ellsworth is currently an undergraduate student at The Boston Conservatory, where she studies with Ina Zdorovetchi. She has won prizes in The Boston Harp Festival Soloists of Tomorrow Competition, the New Albany Symphony Concerto Competition, The Boston Conservatory Concerto Competition, and most recently, the American Harp Society’s Anne Adams Awards competition. Anna has performed with renowned artists such as the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), soprano Tony Arnold, and violinist Hilary Hahn, and she has appeared as a soloist with the Hemenway Strings and the Boston Conservatory Conductor’s Orchestra. In 2015, Anna became a substitute member of the Boston Lyric Opera.
Dana Schneider is from Harmony, Pennsylvania. She is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree in Harp Performance at the New England Conservatory, where she is a student of Jessica Zhou. Dana completed her undergraduate degree from Yale University in Political Science and graduated with distinction. While at Yale, she was a student in the studio of June Han and played with the Yale Symphony Orchestra. Dana was a winner of the Yale Friends of Music Honors Recital Competition. She has attended summer festivals such as the Aspen Music Festival, the Saratoga Harp Colony, and the Castleton Festival led by the late Maestro Lorin Maazel. Dana credits her love of the harp to her lessons with Gretchen Van Hoesen.
Anya Grace Garipoli resides in West Long Branch, New Jersey. She currently studies harp performance under Yolanda Kondonassis at the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio, where she will be a sophomore this fall. She previously studied harp under Joan Holland at Interlochen Arts Academy as well as Elizabeth Hainen, Kimberly Rowe, and Barbara Biggers. Anya received an Emerson Scholarship and Fine Arts Achievement in Harp from Interlochen Arts Camp in 2014, 1st Place in the Senior Pedal Division from the American Harp Society Philadelphia Chapter’s competition in 2013, and Honorable Mention at the Young Artist’s Harp Competition in 2012. Anya has performed in numerous local civic and religious venues gigging and performing concerts.
A native of Maryland, Anna Dunlap is currently a student at the Eastman School of Music in the studio of Kathleen Bride. Anna has performed as concerto soloist with the Peabody YouthOrchestra, Londontowne Symphony Orchestra (MD), and the Graduate ChamberOrchestra at Eastman. She has performed in masterclasses for Courtney Hershey Bress, Douglas Rioth, Elizabeth Hainen, Ina Zdorovetchi, and Yolanda Kondonassis. Anna has participated in the Saratoga Harp Colony, “The PracticalHarpist” Seminar at Eastman, and the Young Artists Harp Seminar. Her previous teachers are Michaela Trnkova and Rebecca Anstine Smith.
