POTSDAM -- The Crane Symphony Orchestra will perform with the winners of the Crane Student Concerto Competition Tuesday, April 9 at 7:30 p.m. in Hosmer Hall, SUNY Potsdam.

The program will start with "Concertstück pour Harpe et Orchestre" by Gabriel Pierné, featuring Mikaela Davis on the harp. Student pianist Rhimmon Simchy-Gross will then present the "Piano Concerto No. 2 in C-Minor" by Sergei Rachmaninoff alongside the orchestra.

After the intermission, the Crane Symphony Orchestra concert will conclude with "Symphony No. 2 (A London Symphony)" by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Mikaela Davis has played harp since she was eight and has studied with Grace Wong, principal harpist of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, for nine years.

Davis was a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra from 2006 to 2010, and performed Debussy's "Danse Profane" in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theater as a concerto competition winner. She performed "The Planets" and "Symphonie Fantastique" with the University of Rochester Symphony Orchestra in 2009, and was the winner of the Charlie Coté Music Award in 2010 for her own compositions.

She recently recorded and released a 13-track self-titled album of original music where she sings, plays harp, and is joined by guitar, sitar, keyboard and drums.

Davis is a junior at The Crane School of Music, studying harp performance with Jessica Suchy-Pilalis and is a recipient of the Curtis S. and Irma B. Bailey Memorial Scholarship, the Mary Lou Hultberg Scholarship and a Crane Scholarship.

While studying with artist Steven Heyman in Syracuse, Rhimmon Simchy-Gross took top prizes in several competitions, including the 2008 Chopin International Piano Competition of the Thousand Islands, the 2008 Music Teachers National Association New York State Division Piano Competition, the 2008 Central New York Association of Music Teachers Advanced Piano Competition, and the 2008 Patricia DeAngelis Piano Competition.

As the first prize-winner of the Youth Concerto Competition, Simchy-Gross performed Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra in 2009.

After participating in masterclasses with artists Andre LaPlante, Marc Durand and Anton Kuerti at the Orford Arts Centre in Quebec and at the Adamante School in Vermont, Simchy-Gross had the privilege of performing in Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in 2012.

Currently in the piano studio of Eugenia Tsarov at SUNY Potsdam' Crane School of Music, he is pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree with a major in piano performance and a second major in psychology.

Anticipating graduation in May 2013, Simchy-Gross plans to move on to graduate work with Lisa Margulis at the University of Arkansas, conducting research in the field of music cognition, and will pursue a Ph.D. in experimental psychology.

For more information about SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music, please visit www.potsdam.edu/crane.