PIANO COMPETITION : 3 Youngsters From County Take Honors

Three Orange County high school students took top honors in a Southland piano competition held at Cal State Fullerton on Saturday.

First place awards went to Victoria Park of Irvine High School in the 12th-grade division, Jane Deng of University High School in Irvine (11th grade) and Jerry Wong of Canyon High School in Anaheim Hills (10th grade).

More than 110 Southland piano students from second through 12th grades participated in the 10th annual Cal State Fullerton Piano Festival Competition.

Finishing behind the three winners were:

Grade 12: Second place, Maila Gutierrez, John Marshall High School, Los Angeles; third, Renee Chang, Montclair High School, Pomona.

Grade 11: Second, Sandy Oak, University High School, Irvine; third, Yvonne Tsai, Cerritos High School.

Grade 10: Second, Florence Ching-Jung Tsai, Santa Monica High School; third, Letizia Paganini, Hamilton High School Academy of Music, Los Angeles.

Winners in the 12th and 11th-grade divisions took home $80, $70 and $60 for first, second and third place honors, respectively.

Tenth-grade winners were awarded $70, $60 and $50 for first through third place, respectively.

More than $1,300 was awarded to the winning participants, according to M’lou Dietzer, founder of the competition and Cal State Fullerton professor of music.

The contestants were judged by a panel of four faculty members at Cal State and two faculty members from other schools.