Eliodoro Vallecillo, a senior at Georgiana Bruce Kirby Preparatory School in Santa Cruz, has been playing the French horn since fourth grade. He has known since then that the French horn was his future. While staying in Santa Cruz since ninth grade with the teacher who gave him his first horn, he goes home to Salinas to visit his family regularly. He will be attending California State University, Long Beach in the fall as a French horn major.

Eliodoro joined his first orchestra, the Youth Orchestra of Youth Music Monterey, in fifth grade. His second was that organization’s Honors Orchestra, which he moved to in eighth grade. His next was the Santa Cruz County Youth Symphony, where he continues to play. He also was a member of the heralded Youth Orchestra of the San Francisco Symphony his junior year.

A seasoned summer music camp participant, Eliodoro hasn’t missed a year since the first summer between the fourth and fifth grades. He has attended Cazadero Performing Arts Camp, the University of the Pacific, Idyllwild Arts and Northwestern University. A serious sufferer of senioritis, he plans to attend only Idyllwild Arts this coming summer for two weeks. Instead, he plans to rest up for college while practicing long hours in preparation for college and the placement audition at Idyllwild.

Included among Eliodoro’s awards are two performances with From the Top, one for radio and the other for television. The television performance was taped last month at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The new series of From the Top shows will be aired on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) beginning in May. His radio show was aired in February 2007 after a taping in Malibu. As part of his From the Top recognition, Eliodoro also received the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Young Artist Award. Also, last year, Interlochen named him the Emmerson Scholar for California, which gave him a full scholarship based on merit for their 6-week summer camp. (Unfortunately, he was unable to attend due to the emergency extraction of all four wisdom teeth.)

In addition to the French horn, Eliodoro also plays accordion, guitar and piano. He particularly enjoys the accordion because it takes him back to his Mexican-American heritage and his earliest memories in Salinas, singing traditional Mexican ballads for his uncles who would pay him for each song.