Why these 9 Utah musicians won’t be forgetting this Thanksgiving anytime soon
Even after five years, Ezekiel Sokoloff can still vividly remember all the little details of his first time performing as a soloist with the Utah Symphony.
He was 12, the youngest performer of the night. The performance, part of the 59th annual Salute to Youth concert, was his first time ever playing a solo with an orchestra. The violinist was 5 feet tall, standing close to the edge of the large Abravanel Hall stage, looking out at the concert hall. He remembers shaking the conductor’s hand. The adrenaline of the moment, the excitement of it all.
Sokoloff is 18 now — and at least a foot taller. He’s studying at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, with his sights set on performing around the country and internationally. But he recently flew back to his Utah home so that he could once again take part in the concert that has meant so much to him over the years.
“It was definitely a big formative moment for me as a violinist, as a musician,” Sokoloff recalled over the phone, during a break in practicing for the 63rd annual Salute to Youth concert. “It’s a big tradition for young Utah musicians. Every musician, every serious musician in the state, one day wants to perform with the Utah Symphony and Salute to Youth. So I think whenever you are given the opportunity, you take it.”
Sokoloff and his good friend Sarah Kendell, who studies human biology and music at Stanford, flew into Salt Lake City together so they could close out the first half of the annual Salute to Youth concert Wednesday night.
Kendell, 18, was 14 when she first performed in Salute to Youth, which is sponsored by the Deseret News. It’s a concert she grew up attending, and now, even during her third time being a part of it, it still felt surreal.
“It’s just so exciting for me every time,” she said.
Dressed in matching burgundy outfits, the pair performed Mark O’Connor’s Double Violin Concerto, which proved to be a standout moment of the night. The only contemporary piece in the concert, the duet played out like a fiery but friendly fiddling battle, with Sokoloff and Kendell riffing off each other as they played the piece with gusto.
They got an enthusiastic standing ovation from the audience. It was one of many throughout the two-hour concert.
Related
‘It was just really exciting’: Young musicians make a major debut
About an hour after her Salute to Youth debut, Maya Marsh sat on the piano bench in her practice room backstage at Abravanel Hall. The 16-year-old was still wearing her royal blue ball gown, which covered the entire bench, and she was playing back all the little details of her performance in her mind.
“I could see so many people I knew in the audience — it felt really nice to have all that support,” she said. “And it was just really exciting to be able to perform in front of a lot of people.”
Marsh, a student at West High School, kicked off the 63rd annual Salute to Youth concert with an energetic performance of the first movement from Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor. She was glad to go first — she didn’t want her stress to be prolonged.
Her performance, which led to the first standing ovation of the night, was the fulfillment of a longtime goal — Marsh has auditioned a few times before but never made it to the concert. Getting to collaborate with the Utah Symphony, she said, was “really fun,” and it all went by faster than she expected.
Related
Now that it’s over, Marsh plans to do a little relaxing over the Thanksgiving break. She’ll continue performing and teaching her students in her piano studio. But working with kids in this capacity has also opened her eyes to other career possibilities, including being a pediatrician. Regardless of what she ends up pursuing, she believes music will always be a part of her life.
The same goes for pianist Alvin Gao, a 13-year-old student at Midvale Middle School. Gao was the second performer of the night, and played with a confidence well beyond his years.
While he is interested in continuing piano performance — a desire he said initially stemmed from trying to be better than his older brother — Gao also has his sights on exploring a “world outside of music,” maybe engineering. But music, he believes, is helping to set him up for success, and he’s grateful to all his teachers and his parents for helping him get to this point.
The skills that emerge from a milestone Salute to Youth performance, like learning how to collaborate and building your confidence, are tools that can be taken into any discipline, Sokoloff said.
“Whenever you get that performance opportunity, it’s always a confidence booster that you went through the entire process of not just the concert itself, but the recording and the live audition and all that,” he said. “Getting to play as a soloist, it’s a big moment, and no matter if you decide to go into music …. you always have that.”
Related
An important stepping stone
But for musicians like Sokoloff, who is pursuing music full-time, Salute to Youth serves as a vital stepping stone in their career.
Eighteen-year-old Alina Baron, who made her Salute to Youth debut in 2021, previously told the Deseret News the experience strengthened her love for music and gave her the confidence to pursue a career in it. She’s now a freshman studying violin performance at the University of Utah.
In her return to the Abravanel Hall stage Wednesday night, Baron played the third movement of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor with remarkable speed and clarity, and had the audience hanging on every note.
And it was clear from her impressive performance Wednesday night that Anne Turner, a mezzo-soprano studying vocal performance at Southern Utah University, has also spent many years dedicating herself to her craft and honing her skills.
Other Salute to Youth artists, like Sophie Wilkes, dream of a music career — but first they have to get through middle school and high school. Wilkes and Deann Huang, both 12, were the youngest performers of the night. But that did not put them at any sort of disadvantage. They each performed with a poise that belied their age.
Wilkes — who practices four hours a day — previously said she was “a little nervous” to make her debut with the Utah Symphony, but you wouldn’t have known that from the grace she brought to the Abravanel Hall stage. The preteen performed the first movement of Bach’s Violin Concerto in A minor with expression, bringing the techniques and phrasings of the baroque period to life.
Huang, who has described herself as a little quieter than her peers, said the violin has allowed her to express herself without having to talk. Her performance of Edouard Lalo’s “Symphonie Espagnole” spoke volumes.
The evening closed out with a lively duet from Alina Baron and her younger sister, 14-year-old Whitney Baron. Although both sisters also performed their own solo pieces earlier in the concert — Whitney Baron performed the Bruch violin concerto — they somehow seemed to have even more energy for their second performance of the night. The sisters, who do just about everything together, were visibly having a good time on stage performing Pablo de Sarasate’s Navarra for Two Violins.
And it wasn’t an act.
“All three of those songs we’re doing are super fun and exciting and kind of like, ‘Yay! We made it!’” said Whitney Baron, who is a freshman at Mountain Heights Academy in West Jordan.
This year’s Salute to Youth artists aren’t bound to forget Wednesday night anytime soon. At its core, the annual concert is about celebrating the musicians’ hard work and accomplishments. But in sharing their passion for music, the young artists also hope they’ll inspire future Salute to Youth performers down the road.
“It’s something that you’re supposed to have fun with,” Whitney Baron previously told the Deseret News. “People shouldn’t watch and think, ‘Oh, wow, that looks like it’s hard.’ It should be like, ‘That sounds fun. It looks like they’re having fun.’”
