Calabasas Trumpeter Among Gifted Young Musicians at Camp

Like any typical teenager at 9 in the morning, Avi Bialo looked half asleep. But when the 14-year-old musician picked up his trumpet and blasted out the first notes of a challenging scherzo, he seemed wide awake--as was everyone else in his house.

The Calabasas teen deftly negotiated the trumpet’s valves, making quick key changes and accompanying piano themes coming from a CD in the background.

“Playing the trumpet isn’t hard, perfecting it is,” Avi said after his virtuoso performance of Scherzo in B flat by Ilia Emmanulovich Shakhov. “Not everyone can do it. It takes a lot of patience.”

That perseverance has paid off for Avi, who recently returned from a 10-day music camp at Sarah Lawrence College and a New York City concert performance with Disney’s Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra, for which he was principal trumpeter.

Avi and 84 other gifted young musicians were selected from about 10,000 applicants for positions with the prestigious youth orchestra, after auditions held in New York, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles. Eleven musicians selected for the June camp, including Avi, were from the San Fernando Valley.

The performers, ages 8 to 14, studied with distinguished composers and performers in workshops and rehearsals. They also visited several New York City tourist spots.

The concert, held at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall at the end of camp, aired this month on the Disney Channel.

Avi, soon to be a freshman at Calabasas High School, showed an early interest in music. He considers the Disney symphony orchestra experience one of the best of his life, and he has many experiences from which to choose.

“Avi showed a musical aptitude early on,” said his father, band leader Ari Bialo. “He started out on stage with me when he was 4 and just had a blast. By 7, he was showing real talent.”

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Avi took up the trumpet when he was 8, after a year of piano instruction. Because he tagged along with his father on gigs when he was very young, he has always felt comfortable performing in front of teachers and judges, he said.

As a sixth-grader at A.E. Wright Middle School, he played in the concert band, the Calabasas school’s most advanced group. After three years, he was awarded the Golden Artist Award--for a musician who demonstrates exceptional talent--after playing the challenging third movement of the Johann Hummel Trumpet Concerto in E flat.

Avi is co-principal trumpeter of the Cal State Northridge Philharmonic Orchestra and has played with the Southern California School Band Orchestra Assn. for two years.

“Avi’s a very mature musician for his age, and he has a very good concept of style and the correct sound a trumpet should make,” said his trumpet teacher, Bob Karon. “He has an unusually good sense of the feel--the soul--of the music. He can create expression and phrasing.”

Avi hopes to attend the Juilliard School in New York after graduating from high school. His daily 2 1/2-hour practice routine is not a chore, he said, but a necessity if he wants to pursue a music career.

“I like auditions and get pleasure from seeing how well I can play,” he said. “You have to practice trumpet every day or you lose your endurance. It’s worth the effort.”