Young Artists Competition

Since 1956, the Tuesday Musical Club has held a Young Artists Competition each spring for serious students of music who reside or study in Texas. The competition is held for piano, voice, or strings in rotating years. Texas Public Radio often records the Finals of the Competition, held in the evening, for later broadcast.

The 2025 Competition, in voice, was held at the Ruth Taylor Recital Hall, at Trinity University, on March 15. A wonderful group of 14 semi-finalists participated in the competition and seven were selected to be finalists and sing again for the judges in the evening.

Here are the talented young women who won our prizes:

From left to right: Maryn West, from the University of North Texas, won second place; Penelope Teague, from Abilene Christian University, won first place; and Lisl Wangermann, from the Cleveland Institute of Music, won third place. All three women are sopranos.

Here are all seven finalists:

These young vocalists—all wonderfully talented—are: Gabriel Chona Rueda, a tenor from the University of Houston; Helena Losada Seabra Salles, a soprano also from the University of Houston; Riley Ortega, another UofH soprano; Ms. Teague, Ms. Wangermann, Ms. West; and Christopher Gray, a baritone from the University of North Texas.

Here are our distinguished judges, pictured with our winners, along with Barry Brake, from Texas Public Radio, at the far right, who was our emcee for the finals:

The judges were Yvonne Gonzalez Redman, a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Alexis Davis-Hazell, on the faculty of the University of Alabama, and Jonathan Stinson, a professor at the University of Arkansas. 

Next year our competition will be in strings. Check this page in the late summer or fall for information about entering the 2026 competition.

The Competition is made possible by the generous support of Martha Oppenheim, and these Tuesday Musical Club funds: Anna Hertzberg Fund for Music, Emma Albright/Dorothy Werner Foundation, Lucile Scrivener/Ernest Scrivener Memorial Award Fund, Ann Stuckey Fund Trust, V.Raulston/G.Pyron/L.Rogerson Fund, Elizabeth Ann Green Fund, Mattie Jennie Fund, Muriel Kelly/Kitty Kelly Kellond Trust, and Harry Herzberg Operating Fund.     

Thanks to Henry Amen for taking these photos for us.