Winners of the Mozart Club Music Scholarships, pictured from left, are Owen Raida, Madeleine DeJoy, Kelson Laska and Esther Knappenberger. Submitted photo

At their annual meeting on May 10, the Mozart club honored the winners of its music scholarships. The four who achieved that goal entertained the club members with their varied musical accomplishments of voice, tuba, French Horn and piano.

Esther Knappenberger, soprano, sang a beautiful rendition of “Oh, Wand’ring One” from “Pirates of Penzance” by Gilbert and Sullivan. Her father, Kent Knappenberger, accompanied her on the piano.

Knappenberger is a senior at Westfield Academy and Central School. She has studied voice with Angela Haas, professor at SUNY Fredonia, and violin with Sue Tillotson. She also plays piano and saxophone.

She has participated in several NYSSMA all-state, and all-county groups and sang the part of Cinderella in that musical and Maria in West Side Story.

Knappenberger states that her goal is to help children discover talents and passion and creativity that are unique to them individually.

Kelson Laska, a senior at Frewsburg Central School, has studied piano with Andrew Schmidt and currently studies tuba with Dr. Gary Kiebrantz at Penn State. Laska also sings bass, plays the piano and even learned tap-dancing in order to co-star in Singing in the Rain.

Laska played the solo “Suite for Tuba” movements 1 and 3 by William Pressler.

Laska has played in CCMTA all-county band since seventh grade and has won scholarships in that band. He plays in the Erie Junior Philharmonic, JCC Concert band and the Jamestown Municipal Band.

His motto is “Make music for the world.”

Madeline DeJoy, a senior at Jamestown High School, has an impressive list of musical abilities: French horn, piano, organ, violin, trumpet, viola, mellophone and voice.

Some of her teachers are Marge Switala, Andrew Schmidt, Ron McIntyre and Catherine Regis-Green.

Maddie entertained with a joyful interpretation of the Horn Concerto 1 by Richard Strauss, accompanied on the piano by Andrew Schmidt. She has played in NYSSMA all-state band, all-state band All-State Symphonic Orchestra, as soloist with JHS Band and won the Charles and Dorothy Jackson Memorial Scholarship.

In her goals, she expresses a desire to create an emotional experience between the performer and the audience.

A senior at Westfield Academy and Central School, Owen Reyda has studied piano for seven years with Emma Bishop, who describes him as a gifted musician who can perform many of the old masters, such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn and Rachmaninoff.

Reyda has studied organ with Donna Getz for five years. He is a Young Organist member of the Chautauqua chapter of the American Guild of Organists. Last June, he performed at the Pipe Organ Encounter at Trinity college in Hartford Connecticut.

Reyda currently fills the role of organist and Cantor for mass at Sacred Heart Church in Lakewood.

He delighted the Mozart Club members and friends with a performance of the “Revolutionary Etude.”