Ouachita Stories

Ouachita Baptist University junior Jason Potts was named the winner of the W. Francis and Mary McBeth Wind and Percussion Concerto Competition on Dec. 11. Mary McBeth sponsored the cash prizes for the competition in honor of her late husband, W. Francis McBeth, who was Arkansas’ former composer laureate and a longtime Ouachita faculty member.

“This is the 10th year that the OBU instrumental department has held this competition,” noted Kristin Grant, assistant professor of music at Ouachita. “Every year, the students support and encourage each other, and the competition helps these outstanding students to reach another level in their playing.”

“It was nice to see my hard work this semester pay off and have the chance to just go out on stage and have fun playing music,” Potts said. “Sometimes the hardest thing about being a musician is not having any tangible progress other than recordings of yourself, but winning a competition is something tangible to keep me working hard.”

Potts, a music education major from Springdale, Ark., performed the first movement of Derek Bourgeois' “Trombone Concerto” on trombone. As winner of the competition, he will be the featured soloist at the Ouachita Wind Ensemble’s spring concert.

“It is the highest honor given to an instrumentalist at this school, and I am very fortunate to have this opportunity,” Potts noted.

Seth Daniel, a sophomore music composition major from Arkadelphia, Ark., received second place for his performance of Mozart's “Horn Concerto No. 3 in E-flat major” on the French horn. Ashley Lovely, a sophomore music education major from Val Alstyne, Texas, earned third place for her clarinet performance of “Concertino for Clarinet” by Carl Maria Von Weber.

“Music has a way of reaching out to a person's emotions, and being able to bring joy to someone who was listening to my performance honestly made this competition a little less scary,” Lovely said. “My favorite part of the whole experience was just being able to perform this piece for people and sharing my love of music with others.”

Other participants in this year’s competition included: Nathan Bateman, a sophomore music education major from Perryville, Ark., on saxophone; Becky Bloodworth, a junior music education major from Carrolton, Texas, on clarinet; and Blake Turner, a sophomore music performance major from Fort Worth, Texas, on trumpet.

Accompanying the performers on piano were OBU staff accompanists Kristen LaMadrid and Susan Monroe. For more information, contact Kristin Grant at [email protected] or (870) 245-5518.

 

By Kelsey Bond