Two NWSA students selected for National Youth Orchestra

jason arevalo and athalie vaval
Two NWSA students selected for National Youth Orchestra
Pictured are Jason Arevalo (violin) and Athalie Claude-Lilia Vaval (viola).

Two students from Miami’s New World School of the Arts high school music division are among the teenage musicians who will soon tour the United States, from coast to coast, playing with the prestigious National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA).

Selected from approximately 1,000 applicants from across the nation, Athalie Claude-Lilia Vaval (viola) and Jason Arevalo (violin) will join 118 of the finest U.S. music students as they embark in the program’s 2014 Summer Tour, led by conductor David Robertson and accompanied by renowned violinist Gil Shaham.

Selected from exceptional young musicians from 35 states, Claude-LiliaVaval and Arevalo underwent a comprehensive audition process that secured their coveted spot in the orchestra and offered them the promise of a life-changing musical and cultural experience.

“I am inspired by the effect that music has — music is universal,” Arevalo said. “I feel as if music is my primary language; finding that there are things which I can only express through music.”

Arevalo, who picked up the violin only because he “saw a group of student violinists when [he] was in elementary school,” performed his first solo in 2006 and has continued his involvement with respected symphonies including Greater Miami Youth Symphony and the New World Symphony. He also has received numerous awards and scholarships — most recently the Hollywood Music Club’s Summer Music Study Scholarship, and scholarships to attend the Eastern Music Festival and Brevard Music Center.

Claude-Lilia Vaval was born in New York and started to play the violin there at age 3 and changed to viola at age 8. She was a member of the Greater Miami Youth Symphony (GMYS) for five years where she collaborated with artists such as Nestor Torres, Il Volo and opera singer Elizabeth Caballero.

Claude-Lilia Vaval won the GMYS competition during her third year in the orchestra and became the principal violist in the senior orchestra and received honorable mentioned at the New World Symphony side-by-side competition.She also was a finalist in 2013 at her school competition and at New World symphony Side-by Side competition.

She was a scholarship recipient from the University Of Miami Frost School of Music Young Musician’s Camp, Coral Gables Music Club and a winner of the Hollywood Music Club summer studies scholarship competition.

Phase one of the program will begin on July 5 as the students attend an intensive two-week training residency on the campus of Purchase College, SUNY, that will allow them the opportunity to hone their craft alongside peers from across the nation. The musicians will partakie in full and sectional orchestral rehearsals under the direction of James Ross, workshops lead by respected professional musicians and principal players from some of the country’s best professional orchestras including the Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and Los Angeles Philharmonic among others and social cultural gatherings.

The second part of the program is just as exciting as the students embark in an eight-city tour across the United States to showcase their music. One concert, on July 22, will take them to New York City’s Carnegie Hall, where the concert will be made accessible worldwide digitally and via broadcast by Carnegie Hall Live, a partnership with WQXR and American Public Media.


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