The School of Music is pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Student Artist Competition. The UNCG School of Music Student Artist Competition provides an annual forum for exceptional student performers to audition for the opportunity to appear in concert with the Symphony Orchestra or Wind Ensemble. Preliminary rounds typically take place in December, with a final round in January that awards performances on concerts scheduled between the following spring and fall semesters.
First Prize
Calvin Godfrey
Trumpet
Student of Dr. Garrett Klein
Calvin Godfrey is currently pursuing a Master of Music in Trumpet Performance at University of North Carolina Greensboro where he holds a Graduate Assistantship and studies with Dr. Garrett Klein. An active performer, he has played with numerous professional ensembles, including the Charlotte Symphony, and advanced to the semi-final round of the graduate solo division at the 2024 National Trumpet Competition. Calvin was also recognized for his paper Beethoven and Shostakovich: The String Quartet in Soviet Russia, winning the UNCG Best Musicology Project award in April 2024. Calvin graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from Virginia Tech, where he studied trumpet with Dr. Jason Crafton.
SECOND PRIZE
Taylor Stirm
Clarinet
Student of Dr. Anthony Taylor and Dr. Luke Ellard
Taylor Stirm is a current Doctoral student at UNC Greensboro and the North Carolina Student Representative for the International Clarinet Association. Stirm has a large private studio in North Carolina of clarinet and piano students and is a clarinet instructor at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts Community Music School and the UNC Greensboro Community Music School. She is equally at home in solo, chamber and orchestral situations, having performed throughout the United States and internationally. She has been featured at conferences of the International Clarinet Association, American Single Reed Summit and HERo. Stirm is a founding member of the clarinet trio Chaos Incarné, which aims to expand the clarinet repertoire through commissioning emerging composers from underrepresented communities. Stirm holds degrees from UNC Greensboro and Arizona State University, where her primary teachers include Anthony Taylor, Luke Ellard, Andy Hudson, Robert Spring, Joshua Gardner, and Theresa Martin.
THIRD PRIZE
Cori Trenczer
Cello
Student of Dr. Alexander Ezerman
Cori Trenczer is a cellist, chamber musician, and teacher from the Hudson Valley region of New York. Coming from a musical family and a family of educators, Cori is both an avid performer and a teacher to a robust studio of cello students. Cori has her bachelors degree in cello performance from the Eastman School of Music and she is a graduate assistant in the graduate string quartet at UNCG. Cori also enjoys playing in the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra as a section cellist, and teaching her studio of roughly 18 cello students, ranging from age 8 to adult. She is interested in contemporary music and playing music by underrepresented composers. Cori is a virtual cello teacher on the faculty of Cornerstone Music Studios and on wyzant.com, and teaches in-person at Moore Music Company and through UNCG’S Community Music Lessons Program.
