by Mick Rhodes | editor@claremont-courier.com

Claremont’s Evangeline Lien was recently named a grand prize winner among more than 1,600 competitors in Los Angeles Music Center’s Spotlight Performing Arts Competition. Along with a $5,000 scholarship, she will perform at the Los Angeles Music Center’s Ahmanson Theatre at 8 p.m. Friday, June 6. Free tickets are at musiccenter.org/spotlightfinale.

Evangeline, the first violist to be named a grand prize winner in the 37-year history of the Spotlight competition, said she was “a little nervous” about playing solo for a panel of judges.

“I loosened up later, so it was just a fun audition, I think,” she said when asked about getting through three rounds with a panel of judges scrutinizing every movement of her bow, culminating in a taut, nerve-wracking semifinal audition in March.

It’s clear her steadfast discipline — practicing three or more hours a day every day for years,  countless hours studying music theory, history, and composition — have resulted in a confident,  astoundingly grounded musician.

15-year-old Claremont High School freshman Evangeline Lien. Photo/by Titilayo Ayangade

The fact that she’s a 15-year-old Claremont High School freshman makes it all the more striking.

“I feel very personally connected to the instrument because I’m able to express myself with it,” Evangeline told me. “I’ve always enjoyed seeing performers have fun on stage, so it’s always been an inspiration for me to be able to connect with audiences. So, I think the viola’s a really good opportunity to express myself to others.”

To put Evangeline’s precocious composure in context, I was her age — 15 — when I auditioned for my first rock band. And though I managed to warble my way through “Come Sail Away” by Styx, and most of “Hold the Line,” by Toto, my stage fright was such that I hid under a table while singing. I didn’t get the gig.

Suffice to say Evangeline does not suffer from a typical teenager’s crippling lack of confidence.

“I think now I get less nervous on stage, so I’m more comfortable with expressing myself and focusing on my performance,” she confirmed.

Spoken like a seasoned pro.

Evangeline’s first and still primary music teacher and guide, her mother, Chu Ping Lin, was principal violist for the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra before moving to the U.S. more than 20 years ago. But if you’re expecting this story to veer into the domineering stage mom trope, think again.

“It was not my intention to train her to be a serious viola player,” Lin wrote in an email. “When she was 9, during the Covid lockdown, we had to find things to do at home. I started to teach her how to play the viola. It was just a hobby for her to entertain herself in the first few years.”

Though Evangeline is now a serious classical musician, she’s also interested in biology and medicine, and is not yet sure whether music will be her career. She said she plans on “continuing to grow and express myself as a musician. I think it’ll always be a part of my future.”

Her mother was just as clear-eyed about the role of music in her young daughter’s life. “Through many performances and competitions, she was given many opportunities to meet and work with different kinds of people, which is valuable in her life,” Lin wrote. “The Spotlight Grand Prize award is very meaningful to her and brought her lots of encouragement. We are proud of her being the first violist to be honored as the grand prize winner in the history of the Spotlight competition. Despite music being her serious hobby, she has some other interests as well at school. We encourage her to explore different strengths of her own, besides music, for her future.”

Evangeline began playing piano at 6. Her first public performance was a 45-minute solo piano recital as a 9-year-old at the Claremont Community School of Music in January 2019. In 2022, at 12, she was accepted to the prestigious Colburn School in Los Angeles as a violist, where she takes classes two to three days per week and all day Saturday on theory, history, ear training, orchestra and chamber music, and has private lessons.

This is of course all in addition to her regular ninth grade studies at Claremont High.

One has to wonder how this remarkable kid balances all that rigorous musical training and competition with being a 15-year-old high school freshman. Not surprisingly, much of her free time is spent immersed in music.

“I think music has always been a really big part of my life, not only making and performing music, but also listening to it and seeing others play” she said. “I like to listen to a lot of music, especially during the day when I’m not playing. It helps me focus.”

Contemporary faves include her Colburn teachers’ recordings, and virtuoso British violist Lawrence Power. Among the giants, she cites Brahms and Bach as inspirations.

“They’re really different,” she said. “Brahms is from the romantic period, so his music is really expressive and emotional. And Bach is from the baroque period, so it’s a very different kind of emotion. I think listening to Bach is really calm. It’s often my study music. I also enjoy playing Bach too.”

The Ahmanson, which opened in 1967 on Grand Avenue in Los Angeles, predates the current cultural renaissance in Downtown LA by several decades. Plays by Neil Simon, August Wilson, Terrence McNally, and Edward Albee have been staged there, and legendary actors — Ingrid Bergman, Jack Lemmon, Faye Dunaway, Vanessa Redgrave, and Katharine Hepburn among them — have trod the boards.

And on June 6, 15-year-old Evangeline Lien will join their ranks.

“I’m excited because the hall is pretty big and with a professional crew, and I get to perform alongside a lot of my friends who are also professional artists,” she said.

I asked her if she had anything else to add to our conversation.

“Just to invite the city of Claremont.”

Evangeline and the other 13 Spotlight grand prize winners — in classical instrumental, contemporary instrumental, acting, ballet, classical voice, non-classical voice, and dance — perform at 8 p.m. Friday, June 6 at the Music Center’s Ahmanson Theatre in the free and open to the public Spotlight Grand Finale concert. Tickets are at musiccenter.org/spotlightfinale.

Stop the tortilla presses!
I have learned that rumors of Los Jarritos’ demise have been greatly exaggerated. Yes, our beloved Mexican joint is notgoing away after all, according to a manager who approached me Wednesday while my kids and I were having what we thought would be one of our last suppers at the Pomona institution.

“It’s a certainty” that Los Jarritos will reopen “nearby,” he said.

Exactly where he could not yet say, nor could he pinpoint just how soon it will happen after shutting the doors for good May 14 at its 39-year home at 3191 N. Garey Ave.

In the meantime, apologies for sending the Pomona Valley into a panic last week with my column on the imminent tragedy, now averted.

And for those questioning whether I had slipped into William Randoph Hearst-level hubris (“You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”), I assure you I was only reporting on Los’s own social media posts and direct conversations with employees. I am overjoyed to have been wrong!