WESTFIELD — The Musical Club of Westfield is pleased to announce three new scholarships for the 202425 school year. The new recipients are Sophie Havens, 2023 graduate of Westfield High School, Celine Gerenshteyn, senior at Jonathan Dayton High School in Springfield, and Deivy Millan Mejia, senior at the College of New Jersey. Ten scholarships were renewed for a total of $50,500 in awards.
Deivy Millan Mejia is a music education major at TCNJ with a focus in Alto Saxophone. He won the 2023 TCNJ Concerto Competition and performed the Concerto in E-flat major for Alto Saxophone and String Orchestra, Op. 109 by Alexander Glazunov earlier this year with the TCNJ Wind Ensemble. He has also participated in several world premieres with the TCNJ Wind Ensemble including “Shared Spaces” by Viet Cuong, “Spiral” by Sally Lamb McCune, and “Weather” by Rollo Dilworth. He works at Mantra Youth Percussion at The Cell & The New Music Gathering in NYC and as a content creator for Creative Baggage, an online resource for creative artists.
Deivy Mejia
Sophie Havens is an 18-year-old vocalist and pianist pursuing a career in choral conducting. She plans to attend Hofstra University to pursue an undergraduate degree in Music Education with a choral focus. She studied Bel Canto opera through the program Bel Canto in Tuscany, Italy. She participated in the 2023 CJMEA, NJ All State Choir and the NAfME All-Eastern Choir under the direction of Jason Max Ferdinand in April 2023 and was awarded Grand Champion Soloist at the Roxbury 31st Annual Choir Invitational in March of 2023. In May 2024, she conducted the Maplewood Men’s Glee Club in a performance of Deep River.
Sophie Havens
Celine Gerenshteyn, will attend Binghamton University in the fall as a Musical Theater Major. Celine has been a frequent performer in numerous productions with the West Orange Jewish Community Center and since 2022 with the Pebble Players Youth Theater. She performed as the lead in her high school production of Chicago as Velma Kelly and as Heather Chandler in Heathers the Musical. She is a member of the Tri-M Music Honor Society.
Celine Gerenshteyn
Scholarships were renewed for clarinetist Michael Dews a Junior at Penn State in Music Education, Robert Strauss, Junior flutist and composer at the University of Delaware School of Music, and Benjamin Zakharenko, Junior music production/film scoring major at Berklee College of Music. The following Sophomores were also renewed; Ashley Rose Breien, Son gwriting major at Berklee College of Music, Kayla Louison, Musical Theater major at Penn State, Ariadne Mahadeo, Voice Performance major at Berklee College of Music, Ryan Marino, Music Education Major at Kean University, Anand Nair, Composition Major at Mason Gross School of theArts, Vivien Reed, Musical Theater major at SUNY Cortland, and Zoe Maria Rivera, Musical Theater Major at Marymount Manhattan College.
The Musical Club of Westfield, founded in 1915, is 501C3 organization devoted to fostering and encouraging music, providing performance opportunities and supporting college aged musicians. The scholarship committee is Co-chaired by Sondra Tammam and Clarissa Nolde. The scholarship treasurer is Drude S. Crane. Donations to the scholarship fund can be made by clicking the Donate button on our home page http:// westfieldnj.com/mcw/.
