Young Artist Concerto Competition
Middleton-Cross Plains Area Performing Arts Center 2100 Bristol St., Middleton, Wisconsin 53562
media release: The Middleton Community Orchestra is pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 MCO Young Artist Competition, as well as the 2025 honorable mentions. The winners will be featured on our next concert on February 19th at the Middleton PAC, and the honorable mentions will be showcased on a chamber recital on February 15th at Capital Lakes downtown Madison.
The winners:
Sarah Blust, piano
Cordelia Fredrickson, violin
Indre Raghavan, violin
Alexander Platt, guest conductor
Tchaikovsky: The Tempest, Symphonic Fantasia after Shakespeare, Op. 18 (1873)
Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47, I. Allegro Moderato (1903), featuring Indre Raghavan
Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54, I. Allegro affettuoso (1845), featuring Sarah Blust
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, III. Finale: Allegro vivacissimo (1878), featuring Cordelia Fredrickson
Tickets: General admission is $20. All students, including college and grad students are admitted free of charge. Tickets are available at the door and at Willy St. Co-op West two weeks prior to the concert, or available for purchase online via Venmo (we will have your name at will call if purchased online in advance). Box office opens at 6:30; doors open at 7pm.
Indre Raghavan began her violin studies at age seven with Janse Vincent, and currently studies with Prof. Eugene Purdue. Indre has been a member of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) for eight years, where she has held concertmaster and principal roles. Indre is a finalist of the 2025 Bolz Young Artist Concerto Competition, and will solo with Madison Symphony Orchestra in the final round, “The Final Forte.” She was a semifinalist of the 2024 Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Stars of Tomorrow Competition, and performed as concertmaster at MSO Stars of Tomorrow Side by Side concert. Indre also was a semifinalist in the 2023 Bolz Young Artist Competition and received honorable mentions in the 2024 Bolz Young Artist Competition, 2024 Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra Young Artist Concerto Competition, 2023 and 2024 Middleton Community Orchestra Concerto Competitions, and was the winner of 2024 Middleton High School Concerto and Aria Competition.
She spent the summers of 2023 and 2024 at the Meadowmount School of Music studying with Prof. Gerardo Ribeiro and Prof. I-Hao Lee. Additionally, in 2024, she attended Sounding Point Academy at The Colburn School. Indre has played in masterclasses for James Ehnes, Paul Kantor, David Halen, Danielle Belen, I-Hao Lee, Blair Milton, Dawn Dongeun Wohn, Julian Rhee, and others.
Outside of music, Indre is a member of the National Honor Society and serves as class representative in Middleton High School (MHS) Student Senate. Additionally, she is a teen teacher of WYSO Music Makers program, serves as treasurer of MHS Letters of Love chapter (which provides emotional support for patients in Children’s Hospitals across the world,) communications leader of MHS Girl Up (a women’s empowerment club,) and president-elect of MHS Unicef chapter. She also loves to train at CrossFit Madtown.
Sarah Blust has played piano for as long as she can remember, exploring chamber and large ensemble music, jazz, composition, and teaching in addition to solo classical piano. She has studied with Bill Lutes for the past six years. Sarah was a winner of the Middleton High School concerto competition in 2023 and received the Highly Commended award at the 2023 WCO Concerto Competition. She was a semifinalist in both the 2024 and 2025 Bolz Young Artist Competitions, receiving Honorable Mention at the semifinal level this January. She placed first in the WMTA Badger State Piano Competition and the MTNA Senior State Piano Performance Competition in 2023 as well as first in the MTNA state junior and senior composition competitions in 2021 and 2023. When not at the piano, Sarah is also a varsity track runner and swimmer at MHS and enjoys spending time with her friends and family.
Cordelia Momo Fredrickson, 16, loves music and is a passionate violinist. Cordelia studies violin with world-renowned violinist and DePaul University professor Janet Sung. Cordelia made her solo orchestral debut when she was 11 in Evanston, IL. Cordelia is a Merit Scholarship Fellow at Midwest Young Artists Conservatory, where she learns chamber music and an intensive orchestral program. She has been concertmaster for 2018-2019 (Philharmonia Orchestra), 2018-2022 (Concert Orchestra), 2024-present (Symphony Orchestra). In 2022, she was featured in the Wisconsin State Journal titled “Hamilton Middle School musician wins Midwest competition en route to soloist career” for her extraordinary achievements. Shortly after that she received a recognition award from the MMSD Board of Education. Aside from her musical interests, she is honored to serve as president of the National Honor Society in the WIVA chapter. Cordelia is a top prize winner of numerous international competitions: Walgreens National Concerto (2019 and 2021), Society of American Musicians (2021), Vancouver International Music (2021), International Music Bonn and Salzburg Grand Prize Virtuoso (2021), Golden Classical Music Awards International (2021), Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Bach Double (2022), American International Music (2024), Charleston 20th Century Music (2024), Virtuoso International Music (2024), Middleton Community Orchestra Young Artist (2025).
Recently honored by the Illinois Council of Orchestras, Alexander Platt has built a unique career spanning the worlds of symphony, chamber music, and opera. Alexander Platt is Music Director of the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra, the Waukegan Symphony Orchestra, and the Wisconsin Philharmonic, and spends his summers as the Music Director of the Maverick Concerts in Woodstock, New York, the oldest summer chamber-music festival in America.
Previously he spent twelve seasons as Resident Conductor and Music Advisor at Chicago Opera Theater, where he led the Chicago premieres of such landmark 20th-century operas as Britten’s Death In Venice, John Adams’ Nixon in China, Shostakovich’s Moscow Paradise, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Peter Brook’s The Tragedy of Carmen, the Tony Kushner/Maurice Sendak Brundibar, the first full staging of Schoenberg’s Erwartung, and the world-premiere recording of Kurka’s The Good Soldier Schweik — all to high acclaim in The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Opera News, Opera Canada, and both the Chicago papers.
The former chief conductor of the Racine (Wisconsin) Symphony, the Boca Raton Symphonia, and the Marion (Indiana) Philharmonic, Platt began his career as the Apprentice Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Minnesota Opera, where he earned universal acclaim for his conducting of Colin Graham’s production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
A graduate of Yale College, King’s College Cambridge (where he was a British Marshall Scholar) and conducting fellowships at both Aspen and Tanglewood, he has guest-conducted the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Illinois Philharmonic, the Freiburg Philharmonic in Germany, the Aalborg Symphony in Denmark, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the City of London Sinfonia, Camerata Chicago, the Banff Festival, the Aldeburgh Festival, and the Houston, Charlotte, Columbus, and Indianapolis Symphonies.
In 2013 he made his debut at the Ravinia Festival, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, to high praise in the Chicago Tribune. Platt has recorded for Minnesota Public Radio, National Public Radio, the South-West German Radio and the BBC, and his Cedille Records disc with Rachel Barton Pine of Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy is still often heard on radio stations throughout the world.