Kalispell Area Music Teachers Association presents its 13th annual Scholarship Alumni Concert Dec. 27.

The show starts at 7 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church in Kalispell.

The annual event is a fundraiser for the association’s scholarship fund and features previous music scholarship winners.

This year's concert is dedicated to the memory of Monty Carter, a popular Flathead Valley pianist who was a scholarship recipient in 1987 and died in 2012.

For the past 26 years, Kalispell Area Music Teachers Association has awarded 255 scholarships totaling $108,000 to college music majors and minors, and to high school and grade school students for summer camps.

Tickets for the concert are $15 for adults, $8 for students or $35 for a family and are available for purchase at the door or from Kalispell area music teachers.

Performers at this year’s show include Katie Martin, soprano; Amos Chon, cello; and Seth Ahnert, piano.

Martin lives in Los Angeles where she is working toward a doctorate in vocal performance at the University of Southern California. A graduate of Flathead High School, Martin earned her Bachelor of Music in vocal performance with high honors from the University of Montana.

Martin has received the encouragement award at the Metropolitan Opera National Council District Auditions and was a finalist in the 2007 Music Teachers National Association competition in Toronto. She has performed roles in numerous operas and was recently a featured soloist with the USC Thornton Wind Ensemble.

She will be performing “Vignettes: Letters from George to Evelyn” by Alan Smith and will also collaborate with Chon and Ahnert in works by Lee Hoiby and Gustav Holst.  

Chon began playing the cello at age 6. He has attended and performed in several master classes and summer music camps. He was invited to tour with the Montana State University Cello Ensemble to China as a soloist in 2005.

In May 2011, Chon toured Poland with Southern Adventist University Symphony Orchestra and was invited to play the Rococo Variations as a soloist in four concerts. He has been the principal cellist in the Maranatha Chamber Orchestra for four years and toured in South Korea in 2013.

Chon has played with the Glacier Symphony Youth Orchestra and Glacier Symphony for more than eight years. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in biology with minors in chemistry and music and plans to one day pursue a career in dentistry. Chon will be performing “Arioso” by Bach, part of an unaccompanied cello suite, as well as “Passacaglia” by Handel with his sister, Jessica Chon, on violin. 

Jazz pianist Ahnert, a graduate of Bigfork High, lives near Seattle, where he teaches percussion and jazz piano at Northwest University and maintains his own private teaching studio. In 2003 he earned top honors at the Montana State Music Teachers Association piano competition in Billings with solo performances of Rachmaninoff and Ginastera.

His introduction to jazz came later and, as a drummer and percussionist, Ahnert has performed in a variety of jazz groups including the Opus One big band and Don Lawrence Orchestra, as well as the Bigfork Summer Playhouse pit orchestra and the Glacier Symphony. Ahnert holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in piano pedagogy from Whitworth University and a Master of Music in jazz studies from the University of Northern Colorado. 

Ahnert will be performing American jazz classics on solo piano and with a jazz ensemble consisting of trombone, bass, drums and vocals by his wife, Jessica.