CSU violin student hopes winning national award inspires musicians from home country

A Columbus State University music student’s talent and ability, shaped in part by roots grown strong in his native Venezuela, have propelled him to win a national honor.

Samuel Vargas, a violin student at CSU’s Schwob School of Music, is one of eleven musicians nationwide selected recently as a winner in the 2019 Yamaha Young Performing Artist Competition. The annual program is conducted by the band and orchestral division of Yamaha Corporation of America and recognizes outstanding young musicians studying in the United States.

“It is a privilege for me to show to the world that Venezuela has a lot of talent and a lot of good people and that we can keep dreaming and achieve our goals,” Vargas said.

Vargas, 22, said he began playing at the age of 11 in Venezuela’s El Sistema Program, a publicly financed music-education program founded in 1975.

“(El Sistema) gives the opportunity to anyone to start doing music and to increase their opportunities spiritually, musically as a profession, as an art,” said Vargas. “It’s that idea that rescued children from other things and involved them in something as beautiful as music.”

Vargas, an international student from Acarigua-Araure, Venezuela, studies under the guidance of CSU professor Sergiu Schwartz, the William B. and Sue Marie Turner Distinguished Chair in Violin. Vargas came to CSU in 2017 on a Woodruff scholarship from the school.

“He knows how to help individually each one of his students and how to make them be the best of them because he has a huge heart, is a wonderful violin player, and an extraordinary person,“ Vargas said.

Vargas said without Schwartz’ help and the Woodruff scholarship, the social and economic instability in Venezuela might have made it impossible for him to study at CSU.

“It is impossible for a Venezuelan student right now to afford any kind of payment for a high-level education,” Vargas said. “So these kind of programs like the Woodruff scholarship and many other scholarships that are around the U.S. give us the opportunity to keep going, and reach what I call the sky.”

Vargas and the other 2019 YYPA winners will gather for a celebratory event in June at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. The all-expenses-paid trip gives the winners a chance to perform before large audiences, take part in workshops exploring how to launch a professional music career and perhaps receive national media coverage.

“For more than 30 years, the YYPA program has supported music education and helped foster the careers of young, aspiring musicians,” said John Wittmann, director of artist relations and education for Yamaha Artist Services in a press release. “We are thrilled to honor Samuel for his remarkable talent at this phase of his music career and watch as he builds upon the YYPA legacy in his path to a promising future.”

“I think this is an opportunity not only to show what I do as a violinist, as an artist but to create a name that in the future will help others, to inspire them to go for those things that they want but they think they cannot achieve,” Vargas said.

Vargas said regardless of where he is, he hopes to be a positive representative of a country struggling through difficult times.

“I just want the people of my country to keep being strong, to keep dreaming and to fight for what they want because there is always a chance, there is always an opportunity, “ Vargas said. “Regardless of what happens right now in my country there is light, and there will be a lighthouse that will guide our path to not only freedom, but to achieve what we want in life.”