Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’s March 24 International Competition Attracts 155 Global Contestants to Chesapeake College Competition Concert

Alejandro Gomez

Three of the best young classical musicians in the world will be performing as finalists in the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’s Elizabeth Loker International Concerto Competition on Sunday, March 24, at 3 PM at the Todd Performing Arts Center at Chesapeake College. They emerged in two rounds of judging of 155 musicians ages 12 to 25 from Maryland, Delaware and 22 states, as well as China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Israel and Canada.

Sophia Geng, Rebekah Hou and Alejandro Gomez Pareja will be performing in competition, backed by the entire Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the youngest conductor to ever win a Grammy-award for Best Orchestral performance, Michael Repper.  Most other major competitions worldwide are performed only with piano accompaniment.  This unique opportunity to perform with a leading professional symphony orchestra has attracted record entries worldwide, competing for major cash prizes and global honors.

Sophia Geng is a junior at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. She started studying violin at age 5, and also studies at the New England Conservatory of Music Preparatory School.  She is in the piano trio program in the Chamber Intensive Performance Seminar and plays in the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra as a first violinist.  Earlier, she was a scholarship holder at the Phil and Eli Taylor Academy for Young Artists, and made her European Orchestral debut with the London City Philharmonic after winning the London International Concerto Competition.  She will perform Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in D Major for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 35.

Alejandro Gomez Pareja of Madrid, Spain began playing cello at the tender age of four.  He has performed as a soloist with the National Youth Symphony of Catalonia, Andres Segovia Chamber Orchestra and Dreamers Orchestra.  In 2022, he performed with Orquesta Sinfonia de Barcelona, National de Catalunya and Orchestra de Caen.  An undergraduate student at Escuela Reina Sofia in Madrid, he is a second-place winner of the Pablo Casals International Chamber Competition. He will perform Dmitri Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1.

Rebekah Hou is currently pursuing a master’s degree in harp performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music. A graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy and the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM), Rebekah was a prizewinner at the 2013 CIM Concerto Competition and received the Anne Adams Award from the American Harp Society’s National Foundation Competition in 2022.  She has appeared as principal harpist with the Akron Symphony, Firelands Symphony and Mansfield Symphony, and received fellowships from Round Top Orchestral Institute, Chautauqua Festival, Interlochen Arts Camp’s World Youth Symphony Orchestra and Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the United States. She will perform Albert Ginastera’s Concerto for Harp and Orchestra, Opus 25.