George Washington Middle School student Jonathan Morgan Petrini has won second place in the National PTA Reflections Awards.
His classical composition for piano, ‘Sonata in E Major, Movement 1: The Hummingbird Sonata’ won the national Award of Excellence after winning first place awards at the school, city, Northern Virginia District and state levels.
It has been a couple of years since Alexandria has had a national winner, so I’m psyched, no matter whose kid it is,” said Cathy Petrini, Jon Morgan’s mom.
Jon Morgan accepted his state award last weekend at the Virginia PTA Awards Luncheon in Richmond. He will receive his national medal, certificate and a $200 scholarship at a ceremony in Orlando in July. His sonata will also appear in an online winners gallery and in the National Reflections Art Exhibit that opens next January at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C.
Watch as Jon Morgan plays, ‘Short and Decisive,’ one of three compositions he entered into the Reflections contest this year:
Seaside Fairy Cottage by Isabel Metzler
George Washington Middle School seventh grader Isabel Metzler earned the third place Award of Merit in the Virginia state competition for Visual Arts at the middle school level for her three-dimensional mixed media sculpture, ‘Seaside Fairy Cottage.’ Isabel advanced to the state level after winning first place awards at the school, city and Northern Virginia district levels.
The 2015-16 Reflections theme was “Let Your Imagination Fly.” Reflections is open to pre-K through 12th-grade students, who create works of art in any of six different categories, based on the year’s theme. Nearly 300,000 students in more than 8,000 schools across the country and in U.S. schools overseas contributed their original works this year to be considered for the PTA’s highest honor in the arts. This spring, a panel of experts reviewed more than 1,000 national-round submissions before choosing the winners.