ORONO – Flutist Kieran Brooks Hutchinson won the 21st Bangor Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition for high school students Saturday, but the rehearsing is far from over.

As winner of the Annas-Cupp Award, the Waterville High School senior will no doubt take every opportunity to keep practicing the beautiful “Night Soliloquy” by Kent Kennan, in preparation for her solos March 10 during three Bangor Symphony Orchestra Youth Concerts.

More than 4,000 youngsters and a fair number of adults will come to the Maine Center for the Arts on the University of Maine campus to enjoy what for many of them will be an introduction to symphony music.

Anyone thinking of the flute as a sweet-but-hard-to-hear instrument will find out differently if they attend a performance by Hutchinson, a student of Jean Rosenblum.

Hutchinson’s concerto was sweet and musical, certainly, but the performance also showed the full range – and definitely the power – of this woodwind.

She was one of six finalists chosen for Saturday’s competition, held at Minsky Recital Hall on campus. Entrants submitted audition tapes and finalists were selected to audition before four judges: Anatole Wieck, Lori Wingo, Phillip Silver and Laura Green-Estey.

The Annas-Cupp Award, established in 1974 in honor of musician-music teachers Harold G. Annas and William G. Cupp, includes a $500 prize. In addition, the Friends of the Symphony provides monetary prizes to the other students honored.

Emily Frank, an oboeist, earned second place and showed incredible breath control presenting Haydn’s “Concerto in C.” The versatility of the instrument was obvious throughout the scale, sounding not unlike a trumpet on certain low notes. A junior at Waynflete School in Portland, she studies with Neil Boyer.

Third place went to Bangor High School senior William Barrett, who studies cello with Noreen Silver. His “Concerto for Cello in A Minor” by Saint-Saens flowed wonderfully to a romantic ending. Barrett, who also plays upright bass and bodhran, a Celtic drum, is playing the cello concerto this year during auditions to continue his education in a music conservatory.

Kelsey Lutz of Holden, a senior at John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor, received honorable mention for the lyrical “Concerto No. 1 in C Major,” by Beethoven. The piece was to be played “allegro con brio” – fast, with animation – and Lutz’s nimble fingers were up to the task. Lutz, who also plays trumpet, studies piano with Ginger Yang Hwalek.

Also taking home an honorable mention was flutist Rebecca Moore, a Winthrop senior who studies with Jean Rosenblum. Mozart’s “Andante in C Major” showed off her fine vibrato.

Finalist David Faherty of Cape Elizabeth was not able to participate Saturday because of another commitment.

To purchase tickets to one of the youth concerts March 10 in Orono, call the Bangor Symphony Orchestra at 942-5555.