Children's Concert Series

One of the Mid-Texas Symphony's proudest contributions to the community is the presentation of the Children's Concert Series which is held each year. Thousands of students from Comal and Guadalupe Counties are bused to the concert venue where they hear the Mid-Texas Symphony perform just for them. And with the help of generous supporters, it is all done at no cost to the children.

Young Artist Competition

The Mid Texas Symphony is proud to announce the winner of the 2009 Young Artist Competition held on March 7, 2009. From a strong applicant pool of 26 talented young vocalists, 15 advanced to the live competition and five competed in the final round. The winner, Amanda Grooms, is a soprano who is completing her masters’ degree at Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. Amanda will perform with the Mid-Texas Symphony at our May 3, 2009 concert in New Braunfels. She is excited about having an opportunity to sing with the orchestra. Amanda participates as a scuba diver in TrashFest, the annual Comal River clean up and says it will be fun to "dress up and see a different aspect of New Braunfels."

Dee Donasco, a dynamic young soprano studying at SMU, took second place honors and Christian Teague, a tenor from Stephen F. Austin University placed third.

The Young Artist Competition was supported by generous grants from the Cecilia Young Willard Helping Fund and the Union Pacific Foundation.

String Lessons

Together with Texas Lutheran University, the Mid-Texas Symphony sponsors string lessons for young strings students in the Seguin and New Braunfels area. Lessons are offered after school at a reasonable cost through the Community Music Academy. For information, contact Sessma@tlu.edu.

Music Memory

The annual Mid-Texas Symphony Music Memory contest was held Saturday,February 28, 2009 at in the Wupperman Little Theater located in the Fine Arts building on the Texas Lutheran University campus.

Using the UIL Music Memory list of pieces of music, forty eight 3rd, 4th and 5th graders competed this year. Elementary schools taking part in the contest were Klein Road, Carl Schurz, Seele, Memorial, Vogel, and Navarro.

The top scorer, and winner of the Schlitterbahn Waterpark season pass and two day passes to ZDT in Seguin, was A.J. Schweninger, of Vogel Elementary of Seguin. Prizes were also awarded to the second place individual top scorers Colin Russell and Reagan Aldersea from Klein Elementary, Cailey Koepp from Memorial and Khrisgina Applewhite from Vogel Elementary. Third place individual top scorers were Sami Wellborn and Katelyn Wisher from Memorial Elementary. Judy Anderson is the music teacher at Vogel and Robert Garza is the music teacher at Memorial Elementary.

The first place team trophy for the third grade team was won by Memorial Elementary team made up of Sami Wellborn, Tristan Rogers, Bobby Campbell and Kailey Koepp. The fourth grade winning team was also from Memorial. The team members were Macy Spence, Esmeralda Giron, Gloria Aguilar, and Cassandra Smith. The first place fifth grade team was from Carl Schurz Elementary. The team members included Austin Bergquist, Kaylee Rubble, and Cody Mims. Cathy Clark is the music teacher at Carl Schurz.

The students and their music teachers are invited guests to the Pops Concert of the Mid-Texas Symphony on May 3, in New Braunfels, TX.

Prizes for the contest were generously donated by Schlitterbahn, City of Seguin Wave Pool, King Ranger Theater, Kirby’s, Gift and Gourmet, Mr. Gatti’s (New Braunfels and Seguin), Chick Filet, ZDT, Sports West, CiCi’s Pizza, Taco Cabana, Taco Bell, Fiesta Lanes, and Baskin Robbins.

All the participating students were awarded prizes for their part in the contest.