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Here are your 2023 Inspired By KPAC winners

Audience members cheered TPR's annual young talent showcase live and in-person for the first time since 2020 on January 21, 2023, as area middle and high school artists, writers and performers brought their talents to our studios for Inspired By KPAC. Over 100 people attended the juried showcase featuring art, music and writing inspired by the classical music heard on Texas Public Radio’s KPAC 88.3 FM. The show was also broadcast live on the radio as it happened.

Listen to the audio link at the top of this page to hear the full program, or check out the embedded SoundCloud files below for individual performers. The art entries are featured in the photo carousel at the top of the page, and to read all the Written Word entries, click the link below.

The First Place winners in each category were:

SOLO MUSICIAN

Louis Geer, BASIS Shavano

ENSEMBLE MUSICIANS

Quid Nunc Saxophone Quartet, Reagan HS

VISUAL ART

Sohini Patel, Johnson HS

WRITTEN WORD

Sunny Vuong, BASIS Shavano

An edited version of the program will be broadcast on KPAC 88.3 FM on Saturday, February 4 at 7 p.m. on “Performance Saturday,” Texas Public Radio’s weekly showcase of great performances from the stages of south central Texas.

The final round was adjudicated by Riely Francis, principal percussion with the San Antonio Philharmonic, Deborah MartinSan Antonio Express-News arts writer, TPR's Norma Martinez, and Adriana Flores, Vice President of Alamo Music Center.

The First Place winners in each category were awarded a $1,000 cash prize, funded by Dr. Lindsay Irvin, Philip and Lee Zinn, Rheumatology Associates of South Texas, Drs. Jatin Patel and Priyanka Gupta, and the Flohr Family Foundation.

Second and Third Place winners in the Solo Musician category were Ellie Kennedy and Viviana Peters. Second and Third Place winners in the Visual Art category were Campbell Leiloglou and Ricky Rodriguez. Second and Third Place winners in the Written Word category were Maria Rivera and Ariana Chaudhary.

Congratulations to all of the winners!

WRITTEN WORD FIRST PLACE WINNER

Sunny Vuong, author of the 1st place Written Word entry.
Chris Stokes
Sunny Vuong, author of the 1st place Written Word entry.

"My Symphony of Solitude: Alone in New York" by Sunny Vuong
Inspired by Ludovico Einaudi’s “Full Moon

Perhaps the moon bites the bullet
train into halves over the dying
horizon. Perhaps I never know

where my ghosts take their tortured
leave. Ribs blanched with waning
light. Waiting for the merciful maw

of the morning. Stray dogs
shivering by the back-exit
of the bodega love me, but

that’s about it. The mercury-vapor
lamp in the “y” flutters tearfully
so the sign reads “grocer” at twilight,

the only way the city remembers
that a human bags their cheap
cigars and plays radio-blues into

the dusk. A recluse sings along to
Sinatra on the subway, the whoosh-clck
of the doors symphonying her solitude.

In a chromium-lined diner
far away, I croon with her,
the waitresses hip-flipping

the jukebox so it crackles out
love’s—schemes—came true—
someday for strangers’ ears.

Perhaps all of the above is true:
the way loneliness is known
by the way it never leaves.

But this evening, the whole diner
choruses together. The night
loosens its fist. I grow moth-eyed

to the chance that light
can be caught in this life.
We all want to wait for dawn

together.

*****

Inspired By KPAC is made possible by Camerata San AntonioPay It Forward SAAntonio Strad Violin, and the City of San Antonio Department of Arts & Culture.