The Auburn Symphony presents…
Young Artists Competition Winners
Parker Van Ostrand
2018 Grand Prize Winner, Piano
Parker Van Ostrand currently studies piano at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Since 2018, Parker has established a career as a solo concert pianist. In 2020, he won Best Sonata Award at the 10th National Chopin Piano Competition. In 2022, he toured with the California Youth Symphony, performing in Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. He has performed with numerous orchestras, including the San Diego Symphony, the Sacramento Philharmonic, and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra.
Parker Van Ostrand
2018 Grand Prize Winner, Piano
Amaryn Olmeda
2017 Grand Prize Winner, Violin
Amaryn Olmeda
2017 Grand Prize Winner, Violin
Amaryn Olmeda currently studies violin at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and was previously at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Since 2017, when Amaryn was the Grand Prize Winner at the age of 9, she has become a celebrated performer, soloing with numerous symphonies across the United States, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the New York Philharmonic’s Kravis Nightcap Series, the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Chamber orchestra. She made her Carnegie Hall solo debut at the age of 14 in 2022 and her Lincoln Center solo debut in 2024.
Amaryn returned to Auburn as the featured soloist at our Masterworks II concert on January 17 and 18, 2026, performing Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto.
Fantee Jones
2008 Grand Prize Winner, Piano
Fantee Jones currently lives in Sacramento where she serves on the Pre-College faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and teaches private lessons in both Sacramento and San Jose. In 2024, she was asked to be the Artistic Director of the U.S. Open Music Competition in Oakland, a nonprofit that has supported youth musicians across California since 1991.
In 2010 Fantee moved to New York to study at the Manhattan School of Music where she earned a Bachelor of Music degree, as well as a Masters of Music degree from Juilliard in 2016. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Eastman School of Music in 2022.
Fantee Jones
2008 Grand Prize Winner, Piano
Ariadne Antipa
2009 Grand Prize Winner, Piano
Ariadne Antipa
2009 Grand Prize Winner, Piano
Ariadne Antipa (Ari) currently lives in Cincinnati and enjoys a balanced career as a pianist, choral director, and music educator in the greater Cincinnati area. She gives many solo and collaborative piano concerts and recently concluded a cycle as the pianist for the Cincinnati Ballet. She is the founder and director of Flight88, a unique music series which offers free Tuesday night concerts to the Cincinnati community in a church-turned-brewery.
After spending three years as a piano major at CSU Sacramento, Ari transferred to the Eastman School of Music to complete her degree. She then earned a Master’s in Piano Performance and Pedagogy at the University of Michigan, followed by a year of freelancing and teaching at a piano academy in Tampa, Fl. After one year in Florida, Ari moved to Cincinnati and earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Piano Performance with a minor in Choral Conducting at the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati.
Janos Csontos
2015 Grand Prize Winner, Saxophone
Janos Csontos studied music at the University of the Pacific in Stockton before earning his master’s degree in saxophone performance at Northwestern University in Chicago. While in Chicago, he and three fellow saxophonists formed the saxophone quartet ~Nois, dedicated to the performance and commissioning of contemporary music. They tour the country at universities, where they perform recitals and offer educational masterclasses to students.
Over the past eight years, ~Nois has premiered more than 110 new works for saxophone quartet, performed over 170 concerts in 28 states, and provided educational programming at over 60 institutions including the University of Chicago, University of Colorado Boulder, Princeton University, and Northwestern University.
Janos Csontos
2015 Grand Prize Winner, Saxophone