14-year-old Will Savage is in eighth grade at Lakewood Middle School in Overland Park. He studies cello with Susie Yang of the Kansas City Symphony. Will made his concerto debut at the Kauffman Center’s Helzberg Hall with the Kansas City Civic Orchestra in 2022 as winner of the Chatelaine Young Artist Competition. Winner of the Kansas state MTNA Junior Strings competition for the last three years, Will has been the state representative in the divisional round of the national competition since 2022. Selected as a Young Artist in the Friends of Chamber Music year-round Scholarship program, Will has also enjoyed the last three summers of chamber music at the Heartland Chamber Music Festival led by Jackie Lee, as well as the last two summers at the Chicago Suzuki Institute. Will has also been fortunate to participate with Destiny Mermagen’s Prairie Classical intergenerational chamber orchestra and chamber music programs, and enjoys coachings with UMKC cello professor Michael Mermagen. Will actively supports young composers by playing their music, and he enjoys composing and arranging works for himself and his friends. He dreams of playing Mahler as a cellist in the New York Philharmonic and writing a symphony someday. Will started studying when he was three in Washington state with Sheila Kilcoyne, after falling in love with the cello and begging to start lessons as a one-year-old. He also enjoys basketball, soccer, ping-pong, board games, reading, playing outside with friends, Minecraft, and cheering on the Kansas City Chiefs.