Sophomore flute performance major Sasha Haft has been named one of 4 finalists for piccolo for the 2011 YouTube Symphony Orchestra.
The winner will get an all expenses paid trip to Sydney, Australia and perform under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas at the Sydney Opera House.
Sasha Haft is originally from northern California where she began playing the flute at age seven. At the age of ten, she became Principal Flutist of the Sacramento Junior Orchestra; part of a regional, audition-only based organization of three orchestras. At age twelve she and her brother Max were selected to perform on NPR’s From the Top with Christopher O’Reilly. With Max on violin, they played a Telemann trio at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX for a live audience of 1,500 and a radio audience of more than 100,000. That same year Sasha again earned the position of Principal Flutist with, first, the Academic and, finally, with the Premier Orchestra of the Sacramento Youth Symphony organization. She served as Principal flutist of the Premier Orchestra for the remainder of high school for a total of nine years with the three orchestras. During her summers, Sasha attended several music camps including Cazadero Performing Arts Camp, the U.C. Davis Chamber Music Academy, and the Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific (SOAP) with Janet Arms. She has participated in master classes with Jill Felber, Marianne Gedigian, Janet Arms, and Emmanuel Pahud. Now 18, she is beginning her second year at University of Colorado at Boulder with Christina Jennings.
