Patty Loew:
We begin this week with an update on a young musician we featured before. You may remember seeing Ansel Norris more than a year ago in our coverage of the 2009 Final Forte program with the Madison Symphony Orchestra. This teenager is making quite a name for himself and as Liz Koerner reports, he's making news on a national scale from his home in Madison.

Liz Koerner:
Ansel Norris used to have time for cool cars.

Ansel Norris:
Especially Audis, those are my favorite cars. My uncle has a TT roadster.

Liz Koerner:
Now with college around the corner music is taking a front seat in Ansel's life.

Woman:
He just works super, super hard. He does stuff over and over again.

Liz Koerner:
His mother Kathy got Ansel and older brother Alex started on the violin at a young age.

Kathy Norris:
He wasn't suited to the violin. So I canceled his lessons after a few years. And then we tried piano. Piano wasn't quite right either and he found the trumpet.

Liz Koerner:
That discovery helped him at a critical point in his life.

Ansel Norris:
I wasn't heading down the best path as a sixth or seventh grader. I was hanging out with people who I consider to be the wrong people at the time. Music helped me through that.

Liz Koerner:
It helps him in other ways as well.

Ansel Norris:
If I ever feel bad about something I go play trumpet for a little while and it's all right again.

Liz Koerner:
Since he started on trumpet he's had teachers who both challenge and inspire him. Scott Eckel at East High School in Madison is one of them.

Ansel Norris:
I asked him, what do you think I should play for solo and ensemble, this was my freshman year. He gave me the Haydn concerto, and I was like, I can’t play this, this is un-playable. And he said, no, you can play it and you will play it. He inspired me to keep going.

Liz Koerner:
Ansel also gives credit to his trumpet teacher, John Aley.

Ansel Norris:
He's totally influenced my playing. He has totally helped me get to where I am and probably where I will be.

John Aley:
When you get to that dotted quarter.

Liz Koerner:
Ansel has been winning awards in competition at both the local and national level. In 2009 he performed with the Madison Symphony Orchestra as part of the Final Forte.

John Aley:
He has aspirations to be a soloist. Which I think are remarkably realistic.

Liz Koerner:
Recently Ansel won admission to Young Arts Week in Miami, an all-expense paid competition offered by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. It's open to 17 and 18-year-olds in nine disciplines.

Liz Koerner:
More than 4,000 applied and only 143 got in.

John Aley:
This whole organization is not just music performance but it's visual and writing and dance and all these musicians have the opportunity to interact with each other. Learn about each other's disciplines, how they might identify themselves with the talent of the students in their disciplines. And it's fantastic.

Liz Koerner:
Young Arts Week was a whirlwind of activities, like a recital where Ansel was paired with another young artist he just met.

Ansel Norris:
I had a pianist in Priscella Chan. She was the best person to collaborate with. She was this little girl but she had so much power.

Liz Koerner:
He also got to see other teens perform.

Ansel Norris:
Right away I was stunned by the fact that nobody wasn't amazing.

Liz Koerner:
During the week, arts professionals gave master classes. Ansel went to one by Michael Tilson Thomas, the music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic director of Miami’s New World Symphony.

Ansel Norris:
It was amazing. He has this level of thought. The critiques he was giving me, they made sense.

Liz Koerner:
Young Arts Week also included a competition. Ansel won top honors on his trumpet and a check for $10,000. John Aley says it's an impressive credential that will help with college auditions.

John Aley:
If I were auditioning him, I didn’t know him, and I saw this on his resume, I would go, “Ooh.”

Liz Koerner:
With high school almost behind him and college straight ahead, Ansel is well on his way to a future filled with music.     

Ansel Norris:
On the days where I have a really good performance I couldn't find any quibbles with, I'm the happiest person in the world.

Patty Loew:
In addition to the $10,000 cash prize, Ansel Norris won a one week arts residency in New York sponsored by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and that's where he is this week. Norris is also eligible for a presidential scholarship to be announced in May.