Schools
Meet This Week's Whiz Kid: Jenny McDunn
Cello whiz performs as featured soloist in May 19 performance at York High School.
Name: Jenny McDunn
Age: 18
School: Senior, York High School
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Achievement: In her final with the York Community High School Symphony Orchestra, senior Jenny McDunn will perform Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in D Minor by Edouard Lalo. McDunn was awarded second place for her performance of the Lalo Concerto at the Wheaton-Glen Ellyn Music Club Competition this past winter.
Key to Awesomeness: “The thing I like best about being a musician is sharing with other people—connecting to people that you don’t even know,” says McDunn. “I feel like when you’re playing music, you’re constantly giving to other people. I really like that aspect of it.”
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McDunn will continue giving to audiences when she takes her cello to DePaul University this fall, where she will pursue a degree in music. McDunn began cello instruction as a fourth-grader at Jackson School. She continued on through Bryan Middle School, then York. She took private cello lessons with Joan Strouse and currently studies with Tim Archbold.
McDunn is the recipient of a Music Performance Scholarship and Academic Presidential Scholarship at the DePaul School of Music. She also received the Louis Hammerschmidt Award, given by the Performing Arts Department.
“Jenny is an extremely talented, hard working, respectful, mature and dependable musical leader who holds herself to very high standards and inspires those around her to do the same,” says Ray Ostwald, York’s orchestra director. “Jenny will make great contributions to the musical community at DePaul University and be very successful along all of her life’s paths.”
Being surrounded by music at home created a network of support for McDunn’s musical ventures; her sister, Megan, is a violinist, and her brother, Tim, plays trumpet. McDunn’s mother, Sue, also played the violin. But besides her family, McDunn credits the “family” she’s been part of at school.
“It always seemed that when you came to the music department, there was a noticeable uplift in the character of the people—the students and the teachers,” said McDunn. “It just feels like home there."
