Rice University baritone Heechang Byun took home two honors at the Young Texas Artists Music Competition, held March 14 , 2026 at Crighton Theatre in Conroe, Texas.

Byun claimed the gold medal in the Voice division along with the Audience Choice Award, earning a combined $8,000 in prize money.

Soprano Elizabeth Marlow, a student at Boston Conservatory at Berklee and the competition’s 2025 Voice gold medalist, earned the silver medal and $3,000. The evening also featured a performance by soprano Brennan Blankenship, YTA’s gold medalist in the Voice division in both 2017 and 2019.

The competition, now in its decades-long run, drew 67 musicians from 11 countries competing across preliminary rounds before eight finalists took the Crighton Theatre stage for Best of Texas: A Concert of Classics. Singers in the Voice division must be between the ages of 20 and 32 and be Texas residents or enrolled at a Texas music school.

“The Young Texas Artists Music Competition is professionally produced and truly Texan,” YTA President/CEO Susie Pokorski said, per an official press release. “YTA really makes a difference — for promising young musicians, for classical music audiences and the cultural quality of Texas.”

Past YTA vocal medalists have gone on to perform as soloists with orchestras including the Laredo Philharmonic and the Texas Medical Center Orchestra in Houston.

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