{"id":223176,"date":"2016-03-16T06:06:57","date_gmt":"2016-03-15T20:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=223176"},"modified":"2016-03-16T06:06:57","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T20:06:57","slug":"re-mi-music-school-students-win-anew-tbmf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/re-mi-music-school-students-win-anew-tbmf\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Re Mi Music School students win anew in TBMF"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-223176 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/re-mi-music-school-students-win-anew-tbmf\/doremi-pix-main2\/'>DoReMi-pix-main2<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-223218'>\n\t\t\t\tDo Re Mi Music School Stringstars members Allan Yu, from second left, Judy Kim, Kevin Liang, and Kate Ishida join instructor Ao Zhang in performing their winning piece yesterday at their music studio in China Town. (Jon Perez)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/re-mi-music-school-students-win-anew-tbmf\/doremi-pix-inset\/'>DoReMi-pix-inset<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-223177'>\n\t\t\t\tJustine Xu is also a member of the group that won gold in last week\u2019s 12th Tumon Bay Music Festival in Guam. (Jon Perez)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>The Do Re Mi Music School Stringstars kept their winning tradition in the 2016 Tumon Bay Music Festival for the 10th straight year. The Stringstars\u2019 quintet won gold in the Ensemble category of last week\u2019s annual event that gathers the best musical talent in the region.<\/p>\n<p>Kate Ishida, Judy Kim, Kevin Liang, Justine Xu, and Alan Yu are the members of the Stringstars\u2014considered as the Team A of Do Re Mi instructor and president Ao Zhang, who is a former member of the Tianjin Symphony Orchestra. Xu is the only one based in Guam among the five members.<\/p>\n<p>Kim, Liang, and Yu also competed last year in the Solo category along with Alexander Chen and Jane Torres, who is now studying in the U.S. Kim and Liang won gold, while the rest brought home silvers.<\/p>\n<p>Cs\u00e1rd\u00e1s by Italian modern\/contemporary composer and conductor Vittorio Monti was the Stringstars\u2019 winning piece for this year. Monti\u2019s piece is played with a piano accompaniment with pianist Miri Kim joining the group in Guam.<\/p>\n<p>The five painstakingly endured more than two months of practicing Monti\u2019s piece first individually and as a group in the final weeks before the competition. Their hard work paid off as all three judges gave them scores worthy of the gold.<\/p>\n<p>Zhang said that Xu, a fifth grader at St. John\u2019s School, sometimes had to fly to Saipan three times a week either for a one-on-one session or to practice with the group. The four also did the same, flying to Guam just to rehearse with Xu.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cXu learned the piece in Guam and she sometimes fly here to practice with us. I also taught the four individually then as a group. We also had some rehearsals in Guam and practiced again as a group almost a week before the competition,\u201d said Zhang, who added that last year they encountered problems with their flight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis time we had no problems with our flight. We decided to go to Guam early for our final rehearsals and also to avoid the same problem that we had last year when our flight first got delayed and then got totally cancelled,\u201d said Zhang.<\/p>\n<p>In 2015, Zhang with Kim, Liang, Yu, Chen, and Torres had to book another flight via Korea to Guam where they arrived on the same day of the competition.<\/p>\n<p>Ishida, an eighth grader at Saipan Community School who also performed solo in piano in the TBMF\u2019s 12th staging, said Zhang\u2019s strict approach every practice paid off big for the quintet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for him [Zhang] we would have not won the gold medal,\u201d said Ishida.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe [Zhang] is very strict,\u201d added Liang, who is now in sixth grade at Saipan International School.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, I\u2019m very strict when we practice. I want everybody to work hard but later they would know why I\u2019m strict with them,\u201d said Zhang, a graduate of the Tianjin Conservatory of Music, considered to be the Julliard School of China.<\/p>\n<p>Ishida first started learning and playing the piano after seeing her sister as a member of the Saipan Southern High School\u2019s Manta Ray Band. \u201cI wanted to be like my sister. Then I decided to shift to violin when I was 10 years old since I love to learn new instruments.\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>Kim, a Mt. Carmel School sophomore, said they had to learn how to manage their time with their studies and practice schedule.<\/p>\n<p>Yu, a Marianas High School freshman who started learning how to play the violin when he was 8 years old, said that he plans to pursue a degree in music when he goes to college.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Do Re Mi Music School Stringstars kept their winning tradition in the 2016 Tumon&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":223177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3146,51,3148,3182],"class_list":["post-223176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-alan-yu","tag-guam","tag-jane-torres","tag-kate-ishida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}