Yu’s and Schaller’s submissions were both musical compositions, for which Yu received first place and Schaller third. Yu’s composition will continue to the national contest, and Yu will also present her piece at the Leadership Conference at Columbia’s Stoney Creek Inn and Conference Center May 4-5.
Schaller has had the opportunity to participate in the conference in the past, having won honorable mention before, but this will be her first time attending.
“I got invited to that but I didn’t get to go last time,” Schaller said. “I do it every year, I think. I don’t know. My piano teacher always encourages me to do it because I compose, so it’s kind of nice too because what have you to lose to submit something?”
Participants must create some kind of art under dance choreography, film-video production, literature, musical composition, photography and visual arts. Every art piece must fit under the contest’s theme, which changes each year. This year’s them is what diversity means.
“For me, this year, it was like diversity matters a lot, and diversity kind of unifies the people, like, even though we’re all diverse, we can still live in harmony, and diversity is good in that way, so I kind of used that aspect,” Schaller said. “And so my composition to me kind of was, like, very soft and sweet and was supposed to kind of portray unity, and how even though we’re diverse, we all work as one.”
By Avantika Khatri
