Golden Apple: Bemidji Area Music Students Perform with Heartland Symphony

The Heartland Symphony Orchestra is an organization that brings musicians together from across central Minnesota to perform free concerts for the public. Each year, the symphony hosts a competition for students to be able to showcase their talents alongside the rest of the orchestra.

“We alternate between a composer competition and a concerto competition,” said Heartland Symphony Music Director Ryan Webber. “This year it was a concerto competition, so [we’re] featuring young soloists from north of St. Cloud and the entire state of Minnesota.”

The two winners of the competition, soprano Hailee Colgrove and pianist Zayn Nimis-Ibrahim, were chosen from a pool of talented young musicians from across the state to showcase their talent.

“Zayn is a senior at Bemidji High School and he will be playing the first movement of Beethoven’s third violin concerto,” continued Webber. “And Hailee Colgrove is a third-year vocal performance major at Bemidji State. She’ll be singing an aria from Mozart’s ‘The Marriage of Figaro,’ and then a different aria from Aaron Copland’s ‘The Tender Land.'”

The two winners were able to perform solos with the orchestra last weekend, which was a first for both Hailee and Zayn.

“It’s just such a cool experience,” Colgrove said. “I mean, in the rural part of Minnesota, you don’t get that opportunity a lot. So being able to perform with a full orchestra is just a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“I play in my high school orchestra, but it doesn’t have all the instruments this orchestra has. It’s just strings, and also the vibe’s a little different,” Nimis-Ibrahim explained. “With this orchestra, I really feel like like a soloist. I got my own dressing room and everything with my name on it, that felt really cool.”

For the students, the concert allows them to show off not only their musical prowess, but gives them the ability to share the music that they love.

“One of the big reasons I play is to share music that’s not always—people don’t always get to hear with other people.” added Nimis-Ibrahim. “And I love that the HSO is doing concerts that aren’t mandatory. Like, you don’t have to pay to get in, you don’t have to pay for a ticket. I think that’s it’s really cool because a lot of people that might not have gone to a concert might see it and be like, ‘It’s free. I’ll go try it out.’ Maybe they’ll like it, maybe they’ll go to another one.”