All stars: Pianists Ashley Fong, Raymond Ross, vocalist Hannah Gomme and cellist Natalia Stoney earned kudos at the recent Shuswap Music Festival.

Five young Shuswap talents have discovered the dance of life is in the music they play.

Jaeden Izik-Dzurko, Hannah Gomme, Raymond Ross, Ashley Fong and Natalia Stoney earned outstanding results in the recent Shuswap Music Festival.

Earning Best of the Fest in piano, 10-year-old Jaeden Izik-Dzurko has been practising piano for more than half his life.

“My dad is my teacher so that helps, we practise together,” says the articulate youngster of working with music teacher David Izik-Dzurko. “Sometimes we get into arguments over the tempo or something, but usually it works out pretty well.”

Izik-Dzurko says his mom wants him to start playing another instrument, like the cello. But while he contemplates the idea, he is not sure it will be the cello.

Izik-Dzurko has attained Grade 5 in piano through the Royal Conservatory of Music, but not all his love or training is directed there.

A member of the Sockeyes Swim Team, Izik-Dzurko, who spent the weekend at a swim meet, says he is “pretty serious about swimming too.”

His own son is not the only one David Izik-Dzurko has inspired.

Best of the Fest Vocal, 16-year-old Hannah Gomme says a summertime musical theatre camp run by Izik-Dzurko was a life-changing experience.

When I was seven I was a fairly shy kid,” she says explaining her mom had enrolled her in the program because her friends were going. “It was kind of like a musical theatre. We all dressed  in different costumes and sang together.”

Having mulled the opportunity over for a week, Gomme says at midnight the day before auditions were to be held for solo parts in a group performance, she announced to her mom that she wanted to try out.

“I ran out of my room and said ‘I want to audition for the solo,’” she laughs. “My mom helped me to 2 a.m. and the next day I got it.”

Gomme doesn’t remember the song she sang, but she does remember being very nervous.

But about a year later, Gomme expressed an interest in taking voice lessons, something her grandparents willingly offered to finance.

“I’ve been in the Shuswap Festival for voice three years running and I’ve won in the category before, but I’ve never won best of the fest.”

Gomme enjoyed being in the Michelle Honcoop’s grade 9-10 concert band but is giving it up in favour of musical theatre next year.

“I’ve just decided that this is what I need to do with my life and I’m planning to go to UBC where Stephanie Nakagawa goes,” she says, referring to the SAS grad, who is working towards a career in opera. “I plan to follow in her footsteps, well, not in opera.”

The teen, who was recommended for the Provincial Music Festival and takes voice lessons from Armstrong’s Terry Logan, is in Ottawa appearing in special Canada Day celebrations with the local choir Chantant.

At 16, Raymond Ross is playing piano at the Grade 9 level and earned Outstanding Senior in Piano at the Shuswap Music Festival.

About to enter Grade 11 at SAS, Ross has been playing piano for 12 years.

“I love it, just that I can make the instrument sound good, that’s the fun of it,” he says pointing out that once students have reached a certain level, choices in the Royal Conservatory curriculum broaden. He says his teacher Jean Ethridge knows what he likes and gives him five or six choices out of each musical period. “I get the chance to choose what I want to do and that makes it way more enjoyable.”

Ross, who practises for the fun of it too, says he once asked Ethridge how long he should practise every day. Upon her advice, he began putting in two hours daily, but it became a chore to try to play within the limits.

“I threw that notion out the window and just do it for the fun of it,” usually for much longer, he laughs. “I don’t even think about it.”

With a solid classical base, Ross is just beginning to get into rock and has ordered a boogie woogie piece.

“I want to be able to do that, play and entertain,” he says, not yet sure how he sees music in terms of his future plans. “I do play other stuff like John Schmidt, a New Age classical composer with elements of Jerry Lee Lewis and Bach or Beethoven.”

At 22, Natalia Stoney is preparing for her Royal Conservatory of Music Grade 10 exam on cello.

One of eight siblings, Stoney and three of her sisters play together for weddings, reunions and anniversaries as The Stoney String Quartet.

Her older sisters play the violin, but Stoney prefers the cello.

“I like the lower tones, not that I don’t like the violin, but it can be high-pitched,” she says, “You have a much wider range on the cello, from lower base register into the treble clef in the more difficult stuff, and it’s really fun to be able to play that stuff.”

Asked how she came by her love of the strings, Stoney says her grandpa was an old-time fiddler. Stoney takes private lessons and says her closest goal is preparing for her conservatory exam.

Ashley Fong is a talented 12-year-old who has been playing piano for half her life.

Recommended for the provincial music festival after earning Outstanding Intermediate in Piano at the Shuswap Music Festival, Fong studies with Jane Hein and says she enjoys performing.

“At provincials, I got a certificate saying I had competed against 13 and under with 15 other kids,” she says of her first trip to the provincial festival.

“It was really fun and nerve-wracking at the same time, with lots of people watching.”