Gautam Ramesh, 9, recently won second place at the International Golden Key Music Composition competition. The winners’ compositions will be included in the program of the Golden Key of Vienna International Music Festival and performed at the World Young Composers’ recital in Vienna, Austria, in July. His winning piece for the piano is called Tarantella in D Locrian scale.
Ramesh has played the piano since he was three and composed since he was four. He has studied under Julie Reina and Georgiana Rosca, and his composition teacher is Ryan Brechmaker. His recent pieces include as many as five instruments. He composes scores using Finale music software. He also plays the recorder.
Ramesh has won various competitions and played solo at the Kimmel Center at the age of six and more recently at Carnegie Hall, at the age of eight. He has won the three-year achievement awards for winning three years at both the NJMTA music competition and the Golden Key piano competition.
His mother, Pady Ganapathy, works in the pharmaceutical industry. His father, Ramesh Nagarajan, is director of strategy at Alcatel Lucent. The family has lived in West Windsor since 2005.
As a fourth grader at Princeton Day School, he studies seventh grade math and is interested in philosophy and linguistics. He studies Indian phonetics with his mother and can read and write Tamil and Sanskrit. He is also on the Princeton Junior Squash team and the WW-P U9 travel soccer team.
Eric Hsu, a cellist and freshman at High School North, has been selected to perform in the JCC Thurnauer School of Music’s Handler master class on Monday, February 8, at 4 p.m. Hsu will perform for cellist Fred Sherry, faculty member at Juilliard, Mannes, and Manhattan Schools of Music.
Hsu, a student of Kristin Palombit and Jonathan Spitz, is a member of the High School North String Ensemble, Youth Orchestra of Central Jersey’s Symphonic Orchestra, and is in the CJMEA Regional II orchestra.
