Enchanting Musical Storytelling
April 27 at 8:00 PM
Nicholas Music Center at Rutgers University, New Brunswick
$20/Adults, $15/Students & Seniors
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Join us for a captivating performance featuring Gabriela Lena Frank’s Three Latin American Dances and Rimsky-Korsakov’s mesmerizing Scheherazade. The final signature concert of the season will also showcase the exceptional talents of the 2025 NJYS Concerto Competition winner in Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations. Don’t miss this evening of enchanting melodies and thrilling musical storytelling!

NJYS Youth Symphony: Helen H. Cha-Pyo, Conductor
2025 Concerto Competition Winner: Rowan Mendel, Cello

Rowan Mendel of Sparta has been playing cello for nine years and studies with Jonathan Spitz of the NJ Symphony and Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. He has also studied with Elad Kabilio at the Manhattan School of Music (MSM) and spent two summers in the MSM program. Recent summer programs have included the Castleman Quartet Program and the Cello Classics course in Tuscany, Italy, studying with Raphael Wallfisch. During the summer of 2024 he studied at Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute. In addition to the Sparta High School Honors Philharmonic, he has performed as Principal Cellist with the New Jersey Youth Symphony for the last three years and the Sussex County Youth Orchestra for the last seven years. In 2023 and 2024, Rowan performed in the North Jersey Group 1 Regional Orchestra as well as the NJ All-State Orchestra. He has traveled with the New Jersey Ambassadors of Music and performed in Sussex, England; Caen, France; and the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, France. Rowan is the recipient of the 2022 New Sussex Symphony Legacy Fund Scholarship Award and has been inducted into the Tri-M Music Honor Society. When not playing cello, Rowan enjoys soccer and is a National Chess Champion. He plans to continue his music studies in college.