In Tune

One is a young Oxnard cellist who used to box. Another is a Tarzana pianist who scored 710 on her math SAT--at age 10. A third is a Thousand Oaks honors student who won an oratory contest--in Chinese.

Oh, and there’s also a 10-year-old violinist who likes video games and Legos.

Research has shown that studying music and playing an instrument reap benefits in other areas for youngsters. So it should be no surprise that the New West Symphony’s Discovery Artists, eight Ventura County and San Fernando Valley virtuosos ages 10 to 21, excel at more than their music.

“When you go to study classical music, you develop almost by osmosis a process of learning,” said New West music director Boris Brott, who will conduct the wunderkinder during two performances next weekend. “A young person who tends to develop skills as a musician tends also to have discipline. . . . They usually are at the top of their classes.”

Now in its fourth year, Discovery Artists allows local young musicians to solo on the same stage as New West’s adult professionals. The Thousand Oaks High School Concert Choir and the New West Youth Symphony All Stars will also perform.

“It’s an opportunity to see what it’s like to play with a professional orchestra,” Brott said. “It’s an opportunity to be heard by an audience in a significant auditorium. It’s an opportunity to give you a taste of what it’s like to be out there.”

For New West, the program is also a way to cultivate new musicians for the professional ranks and build an audience for classical music.

“We live in a world where classical music is to young people often not a normal pursuit,” Brott said. “It doesn’t run in the everyday mainstream of what one does. We certainly have found that just a little exposure will pique an interest that will pay tremendous dividends.”

Introducing the 1999 Discovery Artists:

KEVIN CHU

Piano is what earned Kevin Chu a spot on the New West stage, but the Thousand Oaks High School freshman has also taken up the clarinet.

“I wanted some variety,” said Kevin, 14. “Piano’s my competition instrument, but clarinet is my leisure thing.”

“Both instruments are a way to relax and get my mind off of other stuff that’s going on,” he said. “And it’s fun making music.”

Kevin had auditioned to be a Discovery Artist twice before, but the third time was the charm.

“I decided to keep on doing it until I actually got it,” said Kevin, who began taking piano lessons at age 4 and is the pianist for the New West Youth Symphony.

He is also ranked 90th among tennis players 14 and under in Southern California and runs track. His Saturdays are spent learning Chinese.

In the upcoming concert, Kevin will play Saint-Saens’ Africa, Op. 89.

“It’s kind of a fast piece, but it’s a very lively and fast piece,” Kevin said. “And it will probably keep people’s attention, keep them awake.”

DAN FRITZ

Just call him Dan the One-Man Band. Dan Fritz, 17, of Simi Valley plays two types of saxophone plus clarinet, trombone, flute and piano.

“I like them all,” he said. “I enjoy playing each one for their own reasons.”

The alto sax will be in Dan’s hands next weekend, making him the first Discovery Artist to perform on saxophone.

A year ago, when he became old enough to drive, Dan faced a tough choice.

“It was either my new saxophone or car insurance,” he said. “It was much more important for me to be able to play on a good instrument, with a good teacher, than just to be able to drive.”

But Dan’s friends and family won’t have to chauffeur him much longer. He plans to get his license before enrolling at Cal State Northridge, where he will major in music performance, on his way to becoming a professional musician.

“I don’t know whether it’s going to be playing or conducting,” said Dan, a drum major for the Simi Valley High School band. “But I know it’s going to be music.”

TIFFANY HSIEH

Pianist Tiffany Hsieh was just three minutes into her Grieg concerto when Brott stopped the audition.

“I thought that he really didn’t like me and he wanted me to leave,” Tiffany said.

Brott had heard enough--enough to offer the 14-year-old a spot in the Discovery Artists corps. She’ll play the first movement of a Prokofiev concerto.

“It’s very loud because it’s contemporary,” she said. “It’s a challenge. It’s pretty hard technically.”

A high school junior from Tarzana, Tiffany skipped second and third grades. At age 10, she scored 710 on her math SAT (along with a not-too-shabby 530 verbal). That same year, she passed the early-entrance exam for Cal State Los Angeles.

But college didn’t seem like a good place for a 10-year-old.

“I didn’t want to rush it any more than I already had,” Tiffany said.

She credits her musical training for some of her success.

“It has definitely affected my academics,” she said. “It’s given me more confidence because I’m now used to performing in front of a lot of people.”

TIMOTHY HSIEH

The youngest of the Discovery Artists, 10-year-old violinist Timothy Hsieh--Tiffany’s brother--will kick off the concert with a movement from a piece by Mozart.

“Mozart is a very fine composer, and he’s very childlike,” Timothy said. “But then, it’s hard to play. It’s sort of playful. It sounds simple but it’s hard.”

To prepare, he practices two hours a day.

“I don’t think anybody likes practicing,” he said, “but performing is fun.”

Timothy said that playing the violin improves his hand-eye coordination, and that’s important for a 4-feet-5 basketball player.

And in his schoolwork, this Lego collector and future scientist has noticed that music helps.

“After I played violin, it’s very easy to concentrate, because your mind is ready to think and you can do many problems and stuff.”

Why do he and his sister play different instruments?

“Let me ask my mother, OK?” Timothy said, then returned. “She didn’t want any competition between the both of us--and also for different variety.”

EDWARD LAN

When he was 5, Edward Lan watched his mother playing piano.

“I saw her when I was young, and I thought it looked fun.”

Now 12, Edward, who also plays violin, is rehearsing to join Jean Yeh--each on their own piano--for Saint-Saens’ “Carnival of the Animals.”

“You can do a lot on the piano,” Edward said. “You don’t have to take breaths. You can breathe all the time.”

Edward, an honors student at Los Cerritos Middle School in Thousand Oaks and a member of the Conejo Valley Youth Orchestra, will be playing with a professional symphony for the first time.

“I like the challenge because it is hard to play with the orchestra and the conductor asks for a lot,” he said. “You have to play nicely.”

Offstage, Edward enjoys math and sports, especially basketball and baseball. He also won a public-speaking contest in Chinese.

REBECCA KAPPEN

There are violinists, the kind who perform with symphonies, and there are fiddlers, those who have been known to play with jug-blowers and wash-boarders.

Rebecca Kappen of Thousand Oaks is both. She’s playing classical music next weekend, but at home, she and her 11-year-old banjo-picking brother play bluegrass.

Unlike some of the other Discovery Artists, Kappen got a late start--she didn’t pick up the violin until age 8.

As for the other Discovery Artists, Rebecca said, “I admire some of their talent, and it kind of makes me wish I had started younger.” On the other hand, “I had more of a childhood than I think the others may have had.”

The 17-year-old high school senior is applying to colleges and plans to major in violin performance. Seeing a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” drew her to the strings.

“I fell in love with how it sounded and begged my parents for a year,” she said. “They finally let me play.”

GIOVANNA MORAGA

At 21, cellist Giovanna Moraga is the dean of this year’s Discovery Artists. The UCLA senior from Oxnard is returning to the stage after performing in 1996.

“It’s kind of like coming back and showing my people and my community I did what I said I was going to do,” Moraga said. “It’s a reminder to people that I’m still here.”

Moraga will be sharing the stage with her father, Jorge, a violist. Her mother, Cherie, is also a professional musician, on oboe and English horn. Moraga plans to follow her parents into the music business after getting a graduate degree in music performance.

“I hope to make it to one of the top 10 orchestras in the nation,” she said.

Moraga also boxed for two years but recently stopped training.

“I took it up as a way of exercise, and I just really enjoyed it.”

JEAN YEH

Jean Yeh is also a Discovery Artist alumna, a violinist from 1998, but she returns this year on piano.

“I like the violin because I feel like I have more control, because basically it’s yourself making the sound,” she said. “The piano I just kind of like because there’s a wider range of sound that you can get from it.”

Jean, an 11-year-old eighth-grader at Lindero Canyon Middle School, began studying music at age 3 at a conservatory in New York before moving to Westlake Village.

“I think it was a good age, because when you’re older it’s harder to learn new things. But when you’re young you’re still learning,” she said.

Accomplished in both instruments, Jean has no plans to take up any more.

“I think two is enough.”

But playing the violin and piano hasn’t made her any better at the video games she enjoys.

On the violin at least, Jean said, “It’s more like hand-to-hand coordination. It’s not really hand-to-eye coordination.”

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FYI

The Discovery Artists will perform Friday at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza and again Saturday at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center. Both shows begin at 7:30 p.m., with a preconcert jazz festival featuring area school bands at 6:15. Mariachi music follows the concert, which is expected to last about two hours.

Tickets, from $7 to $18 or $30 for a group of six, can be reserved at either venue’s box offices or by calling the New West Symphony at 497-5880.