Young Artist Competition winners play with Coast Guard Band

What a fabulous way to give young musicians the chance to play with an amazing band. Winners of the Coast Guard Band's annual Young Artist Competition reap the benefits of that title by getting to perform with the band Sunday.

Tuba player Samantha Lake will perform Don Haddad's "Suite for Tuba," and oboist Kaitlin Pet - a junior at Glastonbury High School - will play Rimsky-Korsakov's "Variations on a Theme of Glinka."

Lake is a senior at New London High School, where she is the marching band drum major and is a member of both the math and track teams. She studies tuba, by the way, with retired Coast Guard Band member Gary Buttery.

Beyond the talent of these two high schoolers, Sunday's concert will include Chief Musician Brooke Allen and Musician First Class Noel Marcano leading the band in works by Richard Wagner and Percy Grainger. And, of course, lots more.

- KRISTINA DORSEY

The United States Coast Guard Band, 2 p.m. Sunday, Leamy Concert Hall, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 15 Mohegan Ave., New London; free; (860) 701-6826.