UTICA — A free concert event presented by The B Sharp Musical Club of Utica, will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 2, at the Sinnott Family & Bank of Utica Auditorium at Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute, 310 Genesee St.

B Sharp Musical Club of Utica presents its annual Scholarship Competition Winners Concert. The performance features 14 high school musicians from Oneida, Herkimer, and Madison counties who competed and won prizes in one of four categories: Voice, Piano, Winds-Brass-Percussion, and Strings. The B Sharp Musical Club was established in 1903. Its Scholarship Competition has been running continuously since the 1940s except for one year — it was cancelled in 2020 at the very beginning of the COVID pandemic. Every year B Sharp awards up to $6,000 in scholarships to help student musicians further their careers.

B Sharp invites different judges every year, all of whom are experienced professionals from colleges and universities throughout the Central New York area. This year’s judges were Asami Hagiwara, piano, from Onondaga Community College; Renee Heitmann, voice, from Hamilton College; Zachary Sweet, strings, from Nazareth College; and Brad Ethington, winds, from Syracuse University.

The prize winners in the Piano category are Sarah Mullen, first place; Brian Chang, second place; Michael Guarneiri, third place, and honorable mentions Is Wu and Aaron Hoffman. In the Voice category, prize winners are Aoife Douglas, soprano, first place; Gabriella Kuliesius, soprano, second place; and Jierui Lin, tenor, third place. In the Strings category, Heather Buchanan-Wise took first place on violin, and Jacob McAvaney won third place on cello. In the Winds-Brass-Percussion category Juhyun Park won first place on flute; Andrea Iqbal won second place on flute and piccolo; and Renate Wilson won third place on flute and piccolo.

Those who wish to do so, donations to the scholarship fund may be made at the door, or by contacting B Sharp President Tina Toglia at TToglia@gmail.com.

For more information about this, as well as other B Sharp activities, visit the club online at www.bsharpmusic.org, and on Facebook and Instagram.