2002 MTNA competition winners selected as ARTS Week National Finalists.

Four 2002 MTNA state winners have been selected among 125 ARTS Week National Finalists for 2004. Kathryn Huo, Tim Sawyier, Christopher Schmitt and Stephanie Wu will travel all-expenses-paid to Miami, Florida, for ARTS Week 2004, the week of January 5. Their ARTS Week participation will earn them between $500 and $10,000 each in cash awards.

Huo, a resident of Madison Wisconsin, studies piano with Christopher Taylor. Sawyier, a resident of Chicago, Illinois, studies oboe with J. Ricardo Castaneda. Schmitt, a resident of Fairfax Station, Virginia, studies piano with Marjorie Lee. Wu, a resident of Naperville, Illinois, studies piano with Emilio del Rosario.

In addition, Hejin Bai, a resident of Northbrook, Illinois, and student of Gerardo Ribeiro; Loren Fishman, a resident of Columbus, Ohio, and student of Sergei Polusmiak, and Emely Phelps, a resident of Frederick, Maryland, and student of Marjorie Lee, earned honorable mention awards of $100 each. This placed them in the top five percent of the 6,506 applicants.

Fifteen other MTNA state winners earned merit awards of recognition, placing them in the top ten percent of applicants. Participation in the ARTS Week National Competitions was made possible by a partnership formed between MTNA and the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts.

The partnership allows students who win an MTNA state competition as a high school junior (eleventh grade) the opportunity to enter the ARTS competition during their senior year with automatic inclusion in the intermediate level of ARTS judging. Allowing the student to enter the competition at this level ensures the national panel of judges will review the students' audition material.

2003-2004 Financial Information

The December/January 2003/2004 issue of American Music Teacher (page 35) featured a presentation of the 2003-2004 budget as adopted by the MTNA Board of Directors. The AMT presentation was excerpted from a more comprehensive document distributed at the Summit for MTNA Leadership in September 2003. Although all the financial data is correct as presented, the excerpted AMT version unfortunately contained several editing mistakes.

The graph on the left should have been labeled MTNA Budgeted Expense; the graph on the right should have read MTNA Budgeted Income. References to Chart 3 and Chart 4 should have been deleted. Also, explanation for the starred item, General Programs, was omitted. It should have read: Arts Awareness & Advocacy Forum, Collaborative Performance Forum, College Faculty Forum, Collegiate Chapters Forum, Independent Music Teachers Forum, Local Associations Forum and National Piano Foundation.

MTNA regrets the editing errors. A corrected version may be found on the MTNA website at www.mtna.org/NANarchive.htm.

Additionally, an independent auditor's report is included on page 101 of this issue, for your information.