ASTA Los Angeles

It’s always a privilege to announce Colburn students’ accomplishments, honors, and competition wins, such as the recent Community School of Performing Arts winners at the California Branch of the American String Teachers Association-Los Angeles Section (CalASTA-LA) Bowed Strings Competition. This year, however, CalASTA-LA also honored the School with its 2026 Distinguished Service Award, and recognized Community School Faculty member Nancy Yamagata with the 2026 Outstanding Studio Teacher Award.

Read more in this month's Colburn in Focus: https://buff.ly/ORkwrNu

Congratulations to violinist Jacob Sun, who performed the first movement of Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Olympia Youth Orchestra and Fung Ho on Sunday. Jacob, whose teacher is Elmer Su, is the Grand Prize winner in our 2025 ASTA-LA Bowed Strings Competition. Here he accepts the Noumi Fischer Prize from ASTA-LA board member Louise Brown.

Congratulations to violinist Jacob Sun, who performed Wieniawski's Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Olympia Youth Orchestra and Fung Ho on Sunday. Jacob, whose teacher is Elmer Su, is the Grand Prize winner in our 2025 ASTA-LA Bowed Strings Competition. Here he accepts the Noumi Fischer Prize from ASTA-LA board member Louise Brown.

The ASTA-LA Board of Directors celebrated teachers at our 2026 Awards Dinner on Saturday, following the Bowed Strings Competition! Congratulations to our 2026 ASTA-LA award recipients:
Nancy Yamagata, Outstanding Studio Teacher of the Year
Elizabeth Blake, Outstanding School Teacher of the Year
The Colburn School, Distinguished Service to the String Community

Congratulations to the recipients of our 2026 CalASTA-LA annual awards! They are:
Nancy Yamagata, Outstanding Studio Teacher of the Year
Elizabeth Blake, Outstanding School Teacher of the Year
The Colburn School, Distinguished Service to the String Community

Congratulations to the winners in our 2026 ASTA-LA Guitar Competition, which took place April 4 at at MacDonald Recital Hall at USC! Many thanks to our judge, Jason Yoshida, and to our Guitar Competition Chair, Brian Head!

Congratulations to the winners in our 2026 CalASTA-LA Bowed Strings Competition - as well as all the participants and their teachers! The finals took place May 23 at Cal State Fullerton - a fantastic day of high-level music-making! These 39 finalists were chosen from 108 preliminary participants, representing 49 of our ASTA-LA teachers. Many thanks to our Bowed Competition chair, Trina Carey Hodgson, to our judges Carrie Kennedy, Kyle Champion, Carrie Holzman-Little; our volunteers and to the Hennings-Fischer Foundation for your support.

Congratulations to the 40 violin, cello and viola students who will advance to the Final Round in our 2026 ASTA-LA Bowed Strings Competition! The Finals Round is open to the public and we encourage everyone to attend on Saturday, May 23, 2026 at Cal State University’s Fullerton Recital Hall.

The Preliminary Round took place during the month of March, with 108 applicants participating in nine categories from 49 studios. Many thanks to our judges Allen Lieb, April Losey, Brandon Encinas, Jacob Thompson, Lindsay Genadek and Stephanie Hunt. With so many excellent performers participating, they had a difficult job narrowing it down! A huge thanks also to our Competition Coordinators, Trina Carey Hodgson and Logan Hodgson.

Congratulations to the winners in our ASTA-LA Harp Competition, which took place April 4, 2026 at First Baptist Church of Glendale. Much thanks to our chair, Marcia Dickstein, co-chair Jillian Risigari-Gaias, and judges Diane Alancraig and Elizabeth Zosseder.

Novice Level:
First Place - Jeremy Liu
Second Place - Rebecca Chou

Junior 1 Level:
First Place - Emmeline Liu
Second Place - Erin Bai