UAB piano students win state MTNA auditions

Freshman Dina Kasman of Vestavia, Alabama, and junior Mira Walker of Birmingham were the winners, and junior Jacob Skiles won honorable mention.

MTNAjoomlaPiano students from the University of Alabama at Birmingham won at the Alabama State Music Teachers National Association College Piano Concerto Audition, held Feb. 23 at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

Freshman Dina Kasman of Vestavia, Alabama, and junior Mira Walker of Birmingham were the winners, and junior Jacob Skiles won honorable mention. Kasman and Walker are music majors in the College of Arts and SciencesDepartment of Music, and both are in the UAB Honors College’s University Honors Program. Skiles is a music major in the Honors College’s Science and Technology Honors Program.

All three are students of artist-in-residence and Distinguished Professor of Piano Yakov Kasman, DMA.

Walker performed Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto, Kasman performed Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini, and Skiles performed Mozart Concerto K 491 in C-minor (1st movement). Both Walker and Kasman will perform for the winners’ recital at the AMTA State conference in early June in Huntsville.

This is great exposure for them and for UAB and the Department of Music, Kasman says.

“This year, the Alabama MTA Concerto competition was much earlier in the year than usual, and it was especially hard for students to prepare their very challenging concertos to be ready to perform at the competition,” Kasman said. “We had three students competing, and they took three top places in state auditions. All three of them played very well, and I am very proud of all of them.”