The Simon-Fiset Suite of Competitions
The Simon-Fiset Competitions were established to encourage young students to continue the serious study of music by acknowledging their exceptional ability, application, and meritorious accomplishment by awarding monetary prizes in the areas of composition, piano, and strings. The legacy of these outstanding opportunities represents one of SMTA’s premier offerings for young musicians in the Seattle area. We hope to see you and your students at next season’s Simon-Fiset!
Piano Division
Performance space at The Center for Chamber Music
Thank you to all contestants and volunteers who participated! Results can be seen here. Certificates will be mailed to winners in the coming weeks. Teachers will receive adjudication notes via email in the coming weeks.
The Simon-Fiset Piano Division is supported by a generous gift from Willard Schultz.
Chair: Colleen Kennedy
Event Dates: TBD
Location: The Center for Chamber Music
Guidelines:
You can read the 2026 Guideline below. A 2027 rulebook will be posted in the coming months.
Click to download 2026 Guidelines
Registration:
TBD
*registration may close earlier if applicant capacity is reached prior to the end of the registration window
As the professional standard of this competition requires extensive effort and cost to ensure the utmost quality for students, all registration fees are final and nonrefundable.
Please reach out to Colleen Kennedy, Simon-Fiset Piano Competition Chair, at simonfisetpiano@gmail.com.
Low Strings Division
Chair: Haeyoon Krentz
Event Date: March 9, 2026
Registration: February 1, 2026 - February 23, 2026
Location: Maple Leaf Lutheran Church: 10005 32nd Ave NE Seattle WA
2026 Adjudicator: Miranda Wilson
Please watch future Staccato Notes and the website for details and information on the dates, rules, and fees or contact Haeyoon Krentz at haeyoonsk12@gmail.com.
The Simon-Fiset Low Strings Competition is open to students ages 5-18 as of February 23, 2026, who have not graduated from high school.
2026 Adjudicator
Miranda Wilson
Cellist Miranda Wilson has a multifaceted career as performer, teacher, and author, bringing the cello to audience across six continents while serving as Professor of Cello at the University of Idaho. Growing up in Wellington, New Zealand, she made her solo debut aged 16, performing Elgar’s Cello Concerto with Orchestra Wellington. She went on to co-found the Tasman String Quartet, which earned international competition prizes and residencies that deepened her lifelong love of chamber music.
Miranda Wilson’s recording projects focus on lesser-known cello compositions, including the album Wondrous Love, which pairs Ernest Bloch with the living composer Daniel Bukvich, and the recently-released Les Délices de la Solitude, a collection of sonatas by the French Baroque composer Michel Corrette.
As an author, Miranda Wilson is a regular contributor to Strings magazine and has written four books that address different aspects of cello playing, teaching, and repertoire: Cello Practice, Cello Performance (2015), The Well-Tempered Cello: Life with Bach’s Cello Suites (2022), Teaching Violin, Viola, Cello, & Double Bass (2023, co-authored with Dijana Ihas and Gaelen McCormick), and Notes for Cellists: A Guide to the Repertoire (2024).
Educated at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, Goldsmiths College (University of London), the University of Texas, and the University of Colorado, and mentored by teachers including Natalia Pavlutskaya, Alexander Ivashkin, Phyllis Young, Judith Glyde, and András Fejér, Miranda Wilson brings their wealth of knowledge to her own cello teaching. Her University of Idaho cello students include competition winners, concerto soloists, singer-songwriters, string quartet enthusiasts, and future music educators.
High Strings Division
Thank you to all who participated in the 2025 competition. Results are here.
Chair: Jan Coleman
Event Date: Monday, March 16, 2026
Registration Dates:
Registration closed due to full schedule on February 23rd at 6:00 pm PT. Students that attempted to register after that time will, unfortunately, not be able to compete. We hope that you will consider applying next year. If you were too late, we suggest having your teacher become a SMTA member to insure early registration. Invoices will be sent out in the next few days to parent emails provided and must be paid to complete registration. The schedule will be sent out on or before March 6, 2026.
SMTA members: early-bird: February 20, 2026 ; non-SMTA members: February 22, 2026. Registration will close when the schedule reaches capacity. Based on prior years, registration can fill up within a couple of days, if not sooner. It is highly encouraged for interested teachers to become SMTA members to insure their student is able to register.
IMPORTANT: Just because you submit an application does not guarantee that you will compete. We take applications by first come, first served bases for equity. If you register and we see, in the list of registrations, that capacity has been reached, we will notify you via email that capacity was reached prior to your application submission. Since payment is not made at this stage, no further action will be needed.
Applications are NOT COMPLETE until payment has been made. This year, an invoice will be sent to the parent email provided, after registration is closed. Invoices must be paid by March 3, 2026 at 9:00 pm PT in order for your student to participate in the competition. If you have not received an invoice at the email provided, please email smtaoffice@gmail.com prior to the deadline and check your spam folders.
Location: Trinity Lutheran Church (6215 196th St SW, Lynnwood WA 98036)
2026 Adjudicator: Elisa Barston
For questions please contact Jan Coleman, the competition chair or email smtaoffice@gmail.com.
Elisa Barston
Praised for her “glowing sound” and “technical aplomb”, multi-award-winning artist Elisa Barston is the Seattle Symphony’s Principal Second Violin, a position she’s held since the 2006/2007 season. Previously, Barston served as Associate Concertmaster of the Saint Louis Symphony for nine seasons and was a member of the first violin section of the Cleveland Orchestra.
As a soloist, Ms. Barston has performed extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia, appearing with the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Taipei Symphony, and the English Chamber Orchestra, among many others. She has also been featured on multiple occasions as soloist with the Seattle Symphony, including in performances of Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto #1, Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto #1, Astor Piazzolla’s “Four Seasons of Buenos Aires”, Antonio Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”, Wolfgang Mozart’s Violin Concerto #5, and U.S. premieres of two previously unpublished violin concerti by Antonio Vivaldi.
An avid chamber musician, Barston was a member of the Corigliano String Quartet. She enjoys playing in chamber series and music festivals including the Seattle Series, Music on the Strait, Concerts in the Barn, and the Seattle Symphony Chamber Music Series.
Ms. Barston also loves to teach. She coaches regularly with the Seattle Chamber Music Society Academy, the Japan Seattle Suzuki Institute, and the Chicago Suzuki Institute, as well as teaching privately. Barston has also served as violin section coach for the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America, created by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute.
Barston’s principal violin teachers include Josef Gingold, Robert Lipsett, Almita and Roland Vamos, Elaine Skorodin Fohrman, and Betty Haag. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Music Cum Laude. At Indiana University, where she earned a Master of Music degree, Ms. Barston was awarded the prestigious Performer’s Certificate, the Jascha Heifetz Scholarship, and the Starling Foundation Grant.
Composition Division
Thank you to all who competed in the 2025 competition. Results can be found here.
Chair: Peter Mack, NCTM
Registration Period: Closed
Winners Announced: approx. May 1, 2026
Location: Online submissions
Rules/Guidelines:
Click here to view the 2026 Rules & Guidelines
Simon-Fiset Composition accepts submissions from students in grades 1-12 grouped into four divisions. New composers are encouraged to enter! All submissions require a complete PDF score of the composition and recordings are strongly encouraged (live instruments or digital). Students may submit more than one composition but must submit a separate application and fee with each submission. See the rules & guidelines linked above for more information.
All entrants receive age-appropriate positive and constructive written feedback from the adjudicator. Submissions receiving first through third places will receive a cash award. All students placing honorable mention or above will receive a certificate.
Contact the SMTA office for more information.
SIMON FISET Composition Competition Results 2026
Division: Myrtle Noble Division (Grades 1-3)
FIRST PLACE Emmett Poon “Dreamland” Student of Sue Poon
SECOND PLACE Dhiyaan Chowdhury “Fantasy Meteor Shower“ Student of Sue Poon
THIRD PLACE Mahathi Vippagunta “Gentle Waves” Student of Sue Poon
HONORABLE MENTION Esther Sunardi “Dolly the Puppy” Student of Josie Zocco
Division: Vie Husted Division (Grades 4-6)
FIRST PLACE Aarya Wagh ”The Calm Cascade” Student of Samantha Yeung
SECOND PLACE Veena Ramanathan “Cappuccino Frappucino - My Dad's Favorite Drink“ Student of Samantha Yeung
Division: Laura Jensen Division (Grades 7-9)
FIRST PLACE Contestant: Sepanta Rahimi “Afsūn” Student of Samantha Yeung
SECOND PLACE Adrian Go “Echoes in Motion “ Student of Sue Poon
THIRD PLACE Willem Goldsworthy “Ocean Watercolors “ Student of Samantha Yeung
HONORABLE MENTION Saisha Kashyap “Ocean Chimes “ Student of Samantha Yeung
Division: Lockrem Johnson Division (Grades 10-12)
FIRST PLACE Brannon Warn-Johnston “A Year with Cancer” Student of Sharon Van Valin and Angelique Poteat
SECOND PLACE Zach Lew “Second movement (2026) - for alto horn and piano” Student of Mark Salman
THIRD PLACE Avery Pun “Skybound “Student of Mark Salman
HONORABLE MENTION Brannon Warn-Johnston “Stages of Inspiration” Student of Sharon Van Valin and Angelique Poteat
HONORABLE MENTION Nina Iorik “Prelude in A minor” Student of Nino Merabishvili
HONORABLE MENTION Xiaonuo Feng “Changes Within and Without” Student of Sharon Van Valin
2026 Simon-Fiset Composition Judge
Emily Doolittle
Canadian-born, Scotland-based composer, researcher, and occasional oboist Emily Doolittle’s music has been described as “masterful” (Musical Toronto), “eloquent and effective,” and “the piece that grabbed me by the heart” (The WholeNote). She has an ongoing interest in zoomusicology—the relationship between animal songs and music—which she explores in both her composition and through interdisciplinary collaboration with biologists. Recent activities include the premiere of Reedbird, commissioned and performed by the Vancouver Symphony, the premiere of (re)cycling I: metals for found and recycled percussion objects by Architek Percussion at the Rainy Days Festival in Luxembourg, and writing the music for a 2023 Audible audiobook adaptation of Anne of Green Gables. She is currently working on a set of pieces about turtles for Canadian pianist Rachel Iwaasa (commissioned by the Canada Council for the Arts) and an algorithmic composition based on data about Arctic plankton for pianist Anna Showalter. Emily is an Athenaeum Research Fellow and Lecturer in Composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow.