The Grapevine:

We occasionally recieve feedback from our Recipients and Award Winners. In this section, we will post the letters we get from time to time.

Featured Letter:

Dear Mr. Rosen,

This is Carol Jantsch, the tuba player who won the Music for Youth Foundation scholarship this year, I wanted to thank you and the rest of the MFY for so generously offering AK and Andre and I this awesome scholarship. I also want to thank you especially for creating the partnership between NFAA and MFY and this enabling these extra awards. I had thought it was enough to win three grand and a trip to Florida from one competition, so I wasn’t really expecting anything else. So when the MFY scholarship came, I must say it was one of the best, if not the best surprise I’ve eve had in my entire life.

It was funny the way they let me know about the award – Chris Schram from NFAA called me and asked if I could come up to Interlochen, Michigan for an ARTS awards ceremony at my Alma Mater, Interlochen Arts Academy. I wondered why he wanted me to drive all the way up from the University of Michigan just to formally hand me a check, but I didn’t really question it because it was a good excuse to go see all my friends still in High school. So I went to the community meeting with the ARTS ceremony, and as Chris announced me as a finalist, he also mentioned that I won $25K. I walked up on stage dragging my draw across the floor as everyone in the auditorium stood up. I got a standing ovation from my alma mater. It was great.

My parents set up an account for the scholarship to which I charge U of M tuition, ridiculously expensive musicology books, and other typical college expenses. Given the ridiculous rate of out-of state tuition here at U of M, unfortunately, the account should be well exhausted by the time I finish my undergraduate degree in three years. However, it will still facilitate a purchase about which I am extremely excited: I’m buying a new tuba! Professional tuba players generally have two tubas; a solo horn and an orchestral horn. I’ve already found a solo instrument I love dearly (the one I brought to Miami), but I’ve been sort of upgrading orchestral tubas since I started playing. I was rather small when I started playing tuba in eighth grade, so I had a tuba to match. I got a bigger one, but still a pretty small one, at the end of my junior year, and now I’ve finally graduated to a full-size large orchestral horn. The sad part is it will be rather pricey; it will cost me just about $10,000 for the kind I want. That’s a big chunk of the scholarship, but I guess that’s what it’s there for. My teacher here, Fritz Kaenzig, is excited about it as well; here’s a quote from an email he sent me about the new instrument: “I get excited thinking about how good you could sound on it and the orchestral possibilities that might open up sooner for you.” It gives me the jibbies when he says things like that, thinking about how I might actually be in a large-scale orchestra someday.

Anyway, I just thought I’d let you know that the scholarship you gave me is serving the purpose I think you meant it to. I don’t think I can possibly thank your foundation enough for the financial and inspiration support, But I also don’t want to waste too much paper. Thanks again for your gift, and I hope you and NFAA and MFY can continue to support the artistic youth of America so generously in the future. Support for the arts is in my opinion the most valuable contribution to society one can make these days.

Thanks and thanks again,

Carol Jantsch, tuba
The University of Michigan
cjantsch@umich.edu