Pioneer clarinetist wins $2,000 in concerto competition

Griffin Roy, a clarinetist in the Ann Arbor Pioneer High School Symphony Band, has won $2,000 in the first concerto competition sponsored by the Washtenaw Community Concert Band (WCCB).

“We are pleased to provide this prize to such an outstanding young musician as Griffin,” said Dr. Christopher Heidenreich, conductor and music director of the WCCB. “We know of no similar contest nationally that awards so valuable a prize. We’re able to do it thanks to the generous support of the Rislov Foundation, and we hope to make it an annual event.”

Roy, 17, is a senior at Ann Arbor Community High School and dual-enrolled at Pioneer High. He is the son of Rob and Adele Roy of Ann Arbor and has a younger sister, Lucie.

“Griffin will perform Debussy’s Premiere Rhapsodie for Clarinet with our band at our April 23 concert, ‘Into the Joy of Spring,’” Heidenreich said. “We are very grateful to Tom and Betsy Warner for sponsoring this event.”

“I began playing clarinet in fifth grade at Ann Arbor Open School under the direction of Carolyn Bybee,” Roy said. As a seventh grader, he earned a seat in the Michigan All-State Band in Grand Rapids and has continued yearly trips to Grand Rapids to participate in all-state ensembles.

“I’ve studied with Jay deVries for the past five years and am immensely grateful to him,” Roy added. “With his help I made it into the Pioneer Symphony Band to work with director David Leach as a freshman.”

As his school band’s first chair clarinet for the past two years, Roy said that he had enjoyed “many exciting musical experiences, including traveling to New York to play at Carnegie Hall and to perform on tours in Budapest, Prague and Vienna.”

On March 26, Griffin will perform Rossini’s Introduction, Theme and Variations in the 60th Annual Pioneer Concerto Concert with the Pioneer Symphony Orchestra.

In addition to playing the clarinet, Griffin is also a co-captain of the Pioneer crew team and a member of the youth group at First United Methodist Church of Ann Arbor. “Our youth group is going on a work trip in Guatemala in June,” he said.

A member of the National Honor Society, Roy said he plans to continue studying music when he enrolls in a university this fall “even though I intend to major in engineering.”