Hamilton Middle School musician wins Midwest competition en route to soloist

Momo, a junior at Hamilton High School, placed first in the Midwest Young Artists Conservatory's youth orchestra division of the Walgreens National Concerto Competition. She competed in late December and won with her performance of Bruch's Violin Concerto No. Illinois.

Niiki Hakala is a first-year band teacher at Hamilton after teaching band for 19 years at four other schools. He said Momo is the most talented student he has taught, and while Hakala can work with students on the basics, Momo can teach them the more technical aspects of playing instruments in an orchestra. Momo plays the viola at school because her parents thought it was a good idea to expand her musicality.

“Obviously, he has more orchestra experience than I do,” Hakala said. “If he needs to explain more, like bending your finger a little more, he could explain it better than I ever could.”

Hakala said she considers Momo a helper.

“One of my biggest concerns when I realized her experience and ability was that she would be completely bored in the classroom, but giving her this leadership role gives her more purpose,” Hakala said.

“The students absolutely respect her. No one envies her. They appreciate her help and ask her for help.”

MYAC is the Midwest's largest youth music education center and includes programs in orchestra, jazz, choir, chamber music, music theory and composition.

This is Momo's fourth year participating in the Walgreens National Concert Competition. She also won when she was in sixth grade and competed last year, but was not allowed to enter due to pageant rules about repeat winners. She also received honorable mention as a fifth grader.

Momo said that playing with the orchestra and working with the conductor for the second time will be easier in some ways and harder in others. It will be easier to understand the orchestral part, but it will be a different orchestra and the piece they are playing this time is quite complex.

“Because it's two years later, I feel like I have more experience and knowledge than I did in sixth grade. So I hope that I can share my ideas more clearly with the orchestra and I really hope that they will have as moving an experience of preparing this piece as I have,” he said.

Momo said she started playing the violin through Suzuki Strings of Madison when she was 3 years old. After progressing quickly, she graduated from the program and continued her studies with a different private teacher to learn more advanced music. Later, her instructor suggested she go to summer camp at MYAC, where she joined the chamber music and youth orchestra programs.

Momo was invited to perform at one of the master classes at MYAC, taught by world-renowned violinist Janet Sung, professor of violin and chair of the string department at the DePaul University School of Music in Chicago. They formed a mutual relationship and Momo later began taking lessons from Sung, whom Momo considers her “dream teacher”.

“I could see he had great potential, even at that young age. She already had considerable technique and musicality for her age, and she was also eager to learn and quick to respond to suggestions,” Sung said. “Winning the Walgreens competition and having the opportunity to play solo with an orchestra is a huge honor. It takes musical maturity to handle this situation.”

Momo said she spends almost every Saturday from late August to sometime in May in the Chicago area, where she has a lesson with a private teacher and practices with two orchestras and a chamber music group at the Midwest Young Artists Conservatory. Momo's family, which includes her dad and mom, Danny and Rie Fredrickson, and her sister, Charlotte, 2, pile into the family vehicle at 5 a.m. for the trip, arriving home usually around 10 p.m.

“We're like Momo's team,” said Rie Fredrickson.

Momo, who also studies piano with a private teacher and attends summer music camps, said her parents encouraged her to practice when she was young. Her mom said it didn't take long for Momo to show a real interest in playing the violin.

“When she was little we just did everything we could to keep up with her,” Rie Fredrickson said.

Momo plans to attend a music conservatory and become a professional violin soloist.

“As I grew older I realized that my dream is to be a soloist and that motivated me to practice more and study a wider variety of music,” he said.