Special to the American
She performed a song called a waltz and it became a command performance as Rachel Antionette Morgan, 11, tied for the win in the senior talent component of the 2008 Pre-Teen America National Scholarship and Recognition Program.
Seeking a new musical piece that would stretch her mentally, Morgan, a sixth grade student who enters Hazelwood North Middle School this fall, played Chopin’s Waltz Op. 64, No. 1 at the piano. She matched a girl’s performance from Dayton, Ohio and the pair split a $300 educational bond.
Mistakenly thought of by some as a beauty pageant, Pre-Teen America is an academic and enrichment program at which some of the best and brightest top female honor roll students ages 7 to 13 compete for more than $25,000 in educational savings bonds, prizes and awards.
“Tying at nationals says to me that I’m as good as everybody says,” she said. “When I practice for hours and hours at the piano, I see at the end that I really am that good.”
She said she spent three hours a day, five days a week for four weeks, learning her new song, which, in competition has to be 2.5 minutes long. The song features rich textures and both hands of the player are kept occupied as they work their way through the complex patterns of notes in the bass and treble clefs.
“The left hand plays its own melody in the song,” Morgan said.
“It was amazing to hear her start the song, the challenge of it and after three weeks, she mastered it,” said her father, the Reverend C.E. Morgan.
“It was really difficult, playing for three hours daily, but in the end, it was worth it,” she said.
After competing at both state and national levels for so long, Rachel lost some of her incentive to keep going, her father said, until she went to the national competition this year.
“That rekindled her motivation,” he said.
Her newfound motivation has provided her with a new skill for her to master – public speaking. For the Missouri Pre-Teen competition this year, she has a two-minute speech ready.
“It discusses how Pre-Teen America made me a better student, citizen and individual,” she said.
“Her speech is the compilation and documentation of her inspiration in two minutes,” said her father.
Morgan is no stranger to these competitions.
In September 2006, she ranked and received a merit finalist trophy and won the junior (girls aged 7-9) talent portion of the Pre-Teen Missouri America Scholarship and Recognition competition in Jefferson City by playing The Irish Wedding Dance. She also received a $100 savings bond and a second trophy. Winning this honor qualified her to compete in the 2007 Pre-Teen America Nationals in Baton Rouge, La. She tied for first runner-up in the junior talent competition with Muzio Clementi’s Sonatina, Op. 36,
No. 1.
The following year, Morgan returned to Jefferson City to compete as a senior (girls aged 10-12), where she received a semi-finalist trophy and tied for first place in the senior talent portion, again qualifying her to make another appearance at nationals.
So far, Morgan has won $350 in educational bonds, eight trophies and one national medallion.
“I think the time was really worth it. I really like my speech. If that song, the Chopin waltz, can win at nationals, then I think it could win at state.”
Over the Labor Day holiday, she will return to the Pre-Teen Missouri competition for the third time and Morgan has her sights on becoming the state and national senior title holder, the highest prize of the entire competition. If she wins in Jefferson City for a third time, she will again return to the national stage next summer.