A community outreach program in its 16th year
The 2025 West Side Connection will feature cellist Sonya Moomaw, 3rd place winner of the 2024 Sphinx Junior Division Competition, performing the third movement of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in D.
Sonya Moomaw is a 14-year-old, ninth grader at The School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati, Ohio. Sonya has won several competitions including the Pacific Musical Society and Foundation in 2024, the Music Teachers National Association Junior Strings Competition in 2023, and the Cleveland Cello Society Scholarship Competition’s Junior Division in 2022. In January of 2024, she was featured on NPR’s “From the Top”. She recently placed third in the 27th Annual National Sphinx Competition in the Junior Division. In 2023, she was awarded the Norman E. Johns Chair Award from the Multicultural Awareness Council of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra.
At age eight, Sonya made her orchestral debut with the University of Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Since then, she has had the honor of performing concertos with the Seven Hills Symphony Orchestra, the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, the New Albany Symphony, and the Blue Ash/Montgomery Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra during the summer of 2024.
Please enjoy a video introduction by Sonya.
West Side Connection, a recipient of the Yale Distinguished Music Partnership Award, enables the BPO to reach out to its international community in the diverse Buffalo area. Through educational activities, guest artist visits and a culminating concert, this project involves students in the Buffalo Public schools, including three Spanish bilingual schools, a Native American magnet school and three international schools serving the population of recent and past immigrants from diverse countries. Exploring diversity under the umbrella of music — a theme uniting all cultures across the globe — allows us to address relevant social issues through an exciting and educational medium.
Hundreds of refugees arrive in Western New York each year from countries all over the world through the US Refugee Resettlement Program. Many of those refugees settle in Buffalo, and a large percentage of them live on the West Side in the neighborhoods surrounding Kleinhans Music Hall. Over half of the refugees arriving each year are from Asia, specifically from Burma and Bhutan. The next largest ethnic group arriving is from Africa; the third largest is from the Middle East. There is also a well-established Puerto Rican community on the West Side. West Side Connection was developed in response to the growth of these populations and through a desire to make an authentic connection with our international community through the powerful entry point of music.
Each year, the program features collaborations with local and national organizations and artists. Past guest artists include the young winners of the Sphinx Competition, a national competition for Black and Latinx string players; the Dance and Drum Company from the African American Cultural Center; dancers from the Latin American Institute, Burmese Community Choir from the International Institute; Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra; composer and violinist Daniel Roumain; conductor Joseph Young; Toronto percussion ensemble TorQ Percussion Quartet; nationally known Project Trio; B-boy Shane Dupree Fry of Verve Dance Studio and Druminar which provides interactive drum experiences in Latin and African traditions.
In addition to the students served directly by the program, for the last six years, the final concert has been shared with many thousands of students across Western New York through our BPO Broadcast On Demand.