Monday, July 20, 2015

Natalie Newton: 2nd Prize, Piano, Cat.C | 2015


Natalie Newton, 17, has studied piano ten years and currently studies with Dr. Robert Holm in Mobile, Alabama. She has won honors at numerous piano competitions in Louisiana and Alabama including Mobile's Sonata contest, the Piano Virtuoso Competition, LMTA, AMTA, and MTNA. Natalie has thrice been a recipient of Schumann Music Club's Youth Scholarships. She has been featured twice as pianist in the Gulf Coast Messiah Chorus Young Artist Showcase, and she performed as concerto soloist in three concerts with the Gulf Coast Youth Symphony. Natalie has enjoyed masterclasses with Dr. Kenneth Drake, Dr. Ludmilla Lazar, and Axel Lenarduzzi, among others. Over the years, she has savored participating in Mobile Piano Ensemble, Mobile Symphony Orchestra's Chamberfest, University of South Alabama's Piano Camp, and other special-topic piano workshops. A fan of Russian music, she particularly loves the compositions of Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff.

Natalie enjoys giving private recitals. A member of a musical family, she also has many warm and colorful memories of collaborative work with her siblings–full-length concerts; benefits and fundraisers; community, civic, and church functions; art gallery and medical receptions; holiday events; musical puppet theater productions; and projects such as recording music for audio story CD's.

Home-schooled, Natalie is entering her senior year of high school. She is a history aficionado and bookworm, biography being her favorite literary genre. She has a lifelong love for art, especially portraiture, and has earned gold keys and other honors in the Mississippi Scholastic Art competition as well as first prizes in other art contests. It was a pleasure for Natalie recently to organize and teach a drawing workshop for girls. Another important interest of Natalie's is mission work. Her future plans are being shaped by meaningful experiences she had serving at a children's home in Honduras and volunteering at a clinic in Nicaragua.