Branch News

October 17, 2026 was a beautiful day at Point Loma Nazarene University where the Sonata Contest in Memory of Jane Smisor Bastien, was held. It was a joy to hear and see so many of our students! We had 207 entrants this year.

I want to thank our incredible team of volunteers! First and foremost, thank you to MTAC member, Dr. Victor Labenske for co-sponsoring our event and helping us to secure Point Loma Nazarene University as our facility. Thank you to Brian Goral and Chutaphin Yeager for organizing our lovely and delicious breakfast and lunch. Thank you to Yuko Maruyama for helping us to communicate with our teachers and student families. To our other MTAC member volunteers: Lisa Bastien Hanss, Sarah Giles, Karlin Labenske, Hua Wang, and Carole Liu Yu, thank you so much for your time.

Other volunteers: Chelsea Clements, Elian Mizrachi, Ari Mizrachi, Emily Trinh, Zachary Haubenstock, Irune Payas Gomez-Arrue, and to the several Point Loma Nazarene music students who volunteered: we thank you so much for your time.

To my husband, Eric, thank you for your time, patience, and technical expertise to help organize the event.

We are very grateful to our highly esteemed judges for the day:

Dr. Hyoung Wuk Kim, Masako Klassen (Fullerton), Joanne Stohs (Northern San Diego), Mark Mendez (Montebello), Teri Watson (Fullerton), Dr. Rob Watson (Fullerton), Dr. Ellen Kim (Fullerton), Dr. Jane Park (Inland Empire) and Dr. Andres Jaramillo (Riverside). We thank them for their time, dedication, and musical expertise.

We hope to see everyone again next year!

Sincerely,

Lori Bastien Vickers, Chairperson

Thank you for participating in the 2026 H. B. Goodlin Scholarship Competition! We had 89 students from all over San Diego County competing in five divisions, who represented 46 teaching studios. The auditions were adjudicated by 9 Preliminary Round judges and 6 Finals judges. After the Preliminary Round Audition in a video submission format, 30 Finalists participated in the in-person Finals Audition at Cuyamaca College Theatre on Saturday, May 9.

The Goodlin Finals auditions were held at the Cuyamaca College Theatre throughout the day. Afterwards, the students and teachers were treated to the piano master class given by Dr. Derek Polischuk, where two selected finalists received instruction on one of their Goodlin competition pieces.

Thank you to the San Diego Foundation, the William E. Schmidt Foundation and other generous donors for their continued support for this event. Thank you to Cuyamaca College for hosting the Saturday Finals Competition in their beautiful theatre.

I would like to acknowledge the participating studios for their work in educating our music students in San Diego County: Eunice Ahn, Emily Balderrama, Irina Bendetsky, Ruslan Biryukov, Dana Burnett, Jessie Chang,
Bingjian Chen, Chiyuan Chen, Chia-Ling Chien, Sun Yung Cho, Tina Chong, P.J. Cinque, Hernan Constantino, Ethan Yi Dong, Berta Godkin, Chris Kim, Sunjin Kim, Sarah Koo Freeman, Valeria Kravchenko, Meixuan Li, Shuang LI, April Lin, Inessa Litvin, Anne Liu, Yu Carole Liu, Rinna Livshin, Pamela Martchev, Alexander Mirolyan, Gaiana Mndoian, Brendan Nguyen, Carol Ong-Chen, Julia Pautz, Anna Savvas, Katerina Sharko, Olga Shevelevich, Xiao-yan Sui, Chetan Tierra, Gill Tsai, Irina Tseitlin, Pasha Tseitlin, Luba Ugorski, Danette White, Angela Wu, Dan Yu, Tingting Zhang, and Xiaoxi Zhang.

I would also like to thank the current and the past members of the MTAC San Diego Board of Directors, and the members of the H. B. Goodlin Foundation Board. Special thanks to Jaclyn Summers and Lea Schmidt-Rogers for their perpetual support and guidance for the Goodlin Competition.

Thank you to the 2026 Goodlin Competition Finals Volunteers. This event is not possible without their help: Jessie Chang, Sun Yung Cho, Connie Gale, Brian Goral, Kiera Jensen, Ed Litvin, Anne Liu, Yu Carole Liu, Carol Ong-Chen, Marj Osgood, Lea Schmidt-Rogers, Xiao-yan Sui, Jaclyn Summers, Naomi Teran, and Chutaphin Yeager.

We were privileged to have these distinguished judges for this year’s competition: Isaac Allen, Lori Bell, Dr. Ching-Ming Cheng, Angela Choong, Dr. Eloise Kim, Dr. Michael Krikorian, Gail Lew, Pam Monroe, Dr. Andrew Park, Dr. Derek Polischuk, Heidi Saario, Dr. Taylor Smith, Dr. Joshua Tan, Mark Teplitsky, and Dr. Philip Tyler. (Judges’ bios here).

2026 Goodlin Finalist Repertoire