Woodwinds Steal the Show at Coleman Chamber Contest

If the Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition provides a glimpse at the future of chamber music, the day of the woodwind quintet may be dawning. Wind ensembles outnumbered the strings better than 2 to 1 at the 54th annual event, while distinctive quintets from Boston took two of the four prizes and appeared on the winner’s concert Sunday afternoon at Caltech’s Ramo Auditorium.

The Coleman Award for Woodwinds or Brass went to the Paragon Winds, from the New England Conservatory. Flutist Donna Shen, oboist Sarah Jeffrey, clarinetist Elizabeth Verinder, horn player Shelagh Abate and bassoonist Micah Standley have a suave, integrated sound, skillfully deployed in an arrangement of Ravel’s “Tombeau de Couperin.”

Vento Chiaro--Joanna Goldstein, flute; Ana-Sofia Campesino, oboe; Leah Abbott, clarinet; Jason White, horn; and Ellen Barnum, bassoon--from the Longy School of Music took the Saunderson Award. They played with muscular thrust and individualized character in Nielsen’s Quintet, Opus 43, a piece that rewards assertive solo thinking.

The Coleman-Barstow Award for Strings was won by the Elan Trio--flutist Claire Chase, cellist Kivie Cahn-Lipman and pianist Phyllis Chen. The threesome from the Oberlin Conservatory brought solid and expressive technique to George Crumb’s haunting “Vox Balaenae,” imposing in both theatrical and musical conviction.

Upholding string traditions were the UCLA heroes of the Alma Quartet--violinists Searmi Park and Dorthy Kwon, violist Lisa Fernandez and cellist Giovanna Moraga. Winners of the Russell Award, they produced a big, fiercely energized and firmly directed sound in three of the movements from Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 3.