William Woodard, piano
(Piano Senior division Second Place 12/10/2011)
MP4 file - QuickTime Format
video length 2 min 22 sec
Lutkin Hall, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL USA
Jan 8, 2012
William Woodard, age 16, attends Normal Community High School in Normal, Illinois. He has been studying piano for ten years, first with Leslie Sompong and currently with Lorene Parsons, both of Bloomington. William plays piano, organ, trombone, and sings.
He placed 2nd in the Illinois Federation of Music Clubs' 2010 State Piano Solo Competition. In 2011, he placed 2nd in both the IFMC State Piano Solo Competition and the State Concerto Competition. William has placed in the Bradley University Piano Competition the last three years, and won the Golden Lyre scholarship and the Marguerite Nenne scholarship for piano.
William has performed in IMEA All-District in the Senior Chorus three years now. This year, he was awarded the number one Bass I in the district and will subsequently be performing in the IMEA All-State Honors Chorus this January.
William enjoys accompanying school choirs and other groups, playing organ at church services, singing in several school extra-curriculars, and playing tennis.
Dong-il Sheen was born in Seoul, Korea. He was described as “a quiet revolutionary who broke the barrier of classical music” (Culture and Me magazine 2006). In a 2002 article in the New Music Composition and Critics journal, Professor Young-Han Heo of the Korean National University of Arts wrote, “Dong-il Sheen is a composer who filled the huge void in our lives with a new style of creative music. He explored music style that was ignored by other composers and now firmly established his own style.”
Mr. Sheen has been active in writing music in many different styles, including western European music, traditional Korean music, children’s music, film soundtracks, and musicals. He graduated Seoul National University and received his Master’s degree at the New York University Graduate School of Music. He collaborated with pianist Jung Hee Han in the album Blue Bicycle, which later received a critical acclaim. He started the new style music movement “Han-ma-dang” and “Music Composers-ma-dang.”
In 2002, Mr. Sheen collaborated with writer-illustrator Jae-soo Liu in the CD-Book Yellow Umbrella, which was named as one of the 10 best illustrated books by the New York Times. Japanese pianist Takako Takahashi made a CD of Mr. Sheen’s music in Japan.
He received numerous awards including the Best Young Artists of the Year award from the Korean Ministry of Culture & Tourism in 2003, and the Grand Prize of the Year in composers and conductors categories from the Korean Broadcasting Service (KBS) in 2004.
Mr. Sheen is a board member of the Association of Korean Musicians, President of the Composer’s Association (Jahk-gok-ma-dang), and Co-president of the Children’s Arts Production. Currently he is a lecturer at the Korean National University of Arts and Seoul National University Graduate School of Music.
Song of Roasted Chestnut is a folk song from the Kyung-gi province. This song contains a refrain, “Oh, roasted chestnut…”, but the rest of the song describes the scenery of nature found in rural Korean life. “Song of Roasted Chestnut” for piano solo starts off with the original folk song melody. Accompanying parts are 7th chords with variations, keeping the format similar to a rondo or paraphrase.