Music, Sound, and Audio Technology

Dylan Ward, a rising college junior at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA), has won the senior division of the North Carolina Symphony’s Kathleen Price and Joseph M. Bryan Youth Concerto Competition. As winner, he will be a featured soloist with the symphony during the 2013-14 season. He also received a cash prize.

From Harrisburg, N.C., he is a William R. Kenan, Jr. Excellence Scholar at UNCSA, and the student of faculty-artist Taimur Sullivan in the School of Music.

Music Dean Wade Weast said Ward is the second saxophone player from UNCSA to win the competition, after Steven Banks won in 2011. “We are very proud of Dylan, and of our accomplished saxophone studio,” Weast said. “This win is another testament to the expert instruction and inspired guidance that students receive from exceptional musicians, like Taimur Sullivan, who comprise our faculty.”

Ward was the only woodwind player to advance to the finals of the competition, held recently at William Peace University in Raleigh.

As America’s first state-supported arts school, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts is a unique stand-alone public university of arts conservatories. With a high school component, UNCSA is a degree-granting institution that trains young people of talent in music, dance, drama, filmmaking, and design and production. Established by the N.C. General Assembly in 1963, the School of the Arts opened in Winston-Salem (“The City of Arts and Innovation”) in 1965 and became part of the University of North Carolina system in 1972.

Resources:

www.uncsa.edu