Culver City Cellist Wins Music Competition

Cellist William Ellzey of Culver City earned top honors at the fourth annual Music Guild Competition, where six high school seniors competed for Westmont music scholarships March 5.

Ellzey won the Guild Scholarship, receiving up to $10,000 in annual music scholarship funds (up to $40,000 over four years) to study at Westmont. Significant music scholarships were given to the other contestants: flutist Marissa Condie of Santa Barbara, cellist Marlena Gonzalez of Los Angeles, soprano Nyajima Tut of Minneapolis, pianist Christina Yang of Diamond Bar and oboist Bethany Yew of San Marino.

Ellzey, who performed "Concerto in D minor" by Édouard Lalo and "Cello Suite No. 1" by Johann Sebastian Bach, is a senior at Southern California Christian Academy. He has performed with the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra, the Culver City High School orchestra, First Baptist Culver City String Quartet and various ensembles through the Los Angeles Junior Chamber Music program. He also plays piano and hopes to major in cello performance in college.

"All six finalists are marvelous young musicians and each performed beautifully," Shasberger said. "Everyone in attendance was blessed by the grace and expressiveness of the performances. We hope these six musicians will continue performing together at Westmont, forming life-long friendships in their musical journey."

Last year Jonathan Wong, who won the Guild Scholarship, and finalists Sierra Farrar, Merckx Dascomb, Kennedy Hahn, Kathryn Ogata and Mirah Ray all enrolled at Westmont.

This year's judges were Grey Brothers, professor of music, Steve Butler, professor of music and music department chair, Steve Hodson, professor of music, Han Soo Kim, assistant professor of music, and Shasberger.