Rounding out this year’s top junior competitors was repeat winner Antonio Pontarelli, a 15-year-old rock violinist from Temecula, California, who was awarded the top prize for Best Groove. Pontarelli made the switch from classical to alternative styles at age ten and quickly gained fame for segueing further into alternative rock. In 2004, he was named the grand champion of NBC-TV’s America’s Most Talented Kids. Pontarelli is recording a new album that features his playing and singing skills.

Ruby Jane Smith won Best Groove in the elementary division. Smith got a chuckle when she gave a nod to old-school bluegrass by including in her performance of “Arkansas Traveler” bite-sized skits that charmed the audience. The 12-year-old hails from Columbus, Mississippi.

Madison (Maddie) Denton, a 13-year-old player from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, won in the Musicianship category the elementary division. The Siegel Middle School student also plays guitar and mandolin and has won national championships on each of these instruments. Meanwhile, Ari Messenger, also 13, from Croton-on-Hudson, New York, won the division’s Established Tradition category. Messenger is enrolled at the pre-college program at Manhattan School of Music. A singer as well, he soloed at Carnegie Hall during a concert with the American Choral Directors Association Eastern Division Honor Choir.

Benjamin Beilman, 17, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, beat out 33 other finalists to become this year’s grand prize-winner of the 2007 ASTA National Solo Competition. Beilman, a junior-division violinist, performed at a winners’ concert on March 10 held at the conference. He also is the Gold Medal winner in the 2007 Stulberg Competition. He has performed with the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and will perform with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at a future date.
He and 11 other finalists received cash awards of $1,000 each.