Newsroom

CORVALLIS - Eugene musicians Misook Yun, soprano, and Alice Blankenship, violin, are the winners of the 1998 Petri Scholarship Awards. They competed in public auditions at Oregon State University to win awards totaling $12,500.

Audition judges were David Stabler, classical music critic of The Oregonian; Myra Brand, voice faculty member and division chair at Western Oregon University; and Robert Hladky, professor emeritus of cello at the University of Oregon. Awarding of the scholarships was based on the applicant's performance and professional plans for the future.

Yun, the first-place winner, will receive $7,500 to participate in a summer music festival in Graz, Austria, where she will study voice and audition for a professional opera company. She is a doctoral student in vocal performance at the University of Oregon. In 1996, she was first prize winner of the 1996 Metropolitan Opera Auditions (Oregon District).

Blankenship received an award of $5,000 to help her attend the Aspen Music Festival and School this summer, and to finance her studies of baroque violin at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels in the fall. Blankenship plays first violin in the Eugene Symphony, and is working toward her doctorate in violin performance and ethnomusicology at the University of Oregon.

The Petri Award was established in the estate of Paul Petri, head of the OSU music department from 1923-47, and his wife, Lillian, who taught piano at OSU. Since its inception in 1962, grants have been awarded to 21 top Oregon musicians, most recently to pianist Maria Choban and violist Andrew Duckles in 1996. The award is administered by the Benton Foundation; the auditions are coordinated by the OSU Department of Music.