Mana Azimi, Abigail Enssle, and Adam Phan are the winners of the 2018 Anne Adams Awards. Anna Dunlap was named an alternate winner, and other grand finalists included Deanna Cirielli, Natalie Man, and Juanito Riveros. The three winners will receive a $2,000 scholarship to further their harp study, a $500 gift certificate to Lyon & Healy, and a travel stipend. Through the Sally Maxwell/Doris Calkins Fund, the grand finalists will receive a $500 prize. The competition took place May 29–June 1 at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. An unprecedented 24 finalists were selected to compete from 15 different schools. Applications were accepted from members of the American Harp Society who were enrolled full-time in colleges or university for the 2018-2019 school year. The jury consisted of Frances Duffy, Julia Kay Jamieson, and Gillian Benet Sella.
Mana Azimi studies at the University of Urbana-Champaign with Ann Yeung. She was formerly a student of Charles Lynch and Karen Miller in the Mesa Public Schools Harp Program. Abigail Enssle is a student of Courtney Hershey Bress at Colorado State University. In 2015, she was named a Jack Kent Cook Young Artist Award winner, a scholarship program developed by NPR’s From the Top. Adam Phan currently attends Juilliard, where he studies with Nancy Allen. He received second prize and the Salzedo prize in the advanced division of the 2017 American Harp Society National Competition and was a co-winner of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Competition.
Visit http://harpfoundationahs.org/competitions.html for more information about the competition.
