A 12-year-old trumpet player from rural Ramona is set to step onto the Coronado stage as a featured soloist next month, the latest milestone in a run of wins that has carried him from Balboa Park rehearsals to a national festival at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Orin O'Neal, a seventh grader at Olive Peirce Middle School, will perform the third movement of Johann Nepomuk Hummel's Trumpet Concerto with the Coronado Philharmonia Orchestra on Saturday, Oct. 24.
The performance caps a string of competitive victories detailed by the San Diego Union-Tribune, which reported that Orin won first place in his age group in the 2026 Coronado Philharmonia Youth Concerto Competition, taking the Young Mozart division. Finalists in that contest were required to memorize a concerto movement and perform it live before judges, after first submitting a continuous, unedited video no longer than 15 minutes, per the same account. Winners were announced May 23, and the competition's three age brackets — Kinder Mozart for ages 7 to 12, Young Beethoven for ages 13 to 15, and Au Fait Bach for ages 16 to 18 — draw young musicians from across the region, the newspaper noted.
Orin's mother, Joanna O'Neal, an elementary teacher at James Dukes Elementary School in Ramona, told the paper that her son already played harmonica and could repeat a tune after just hearing it before he ever touched a trumpet. He received a pocket trumpet — a smaller version of the standard instrument — from her on his seventh birthday, the station's report states, and quickly learned to play songs including “Ode to Joy” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”
From Balboa Park Sundays to Two-Hour Daily Practice
Orin joined the San Diego Youth Symphony at age 8, an ensemble that rehearses on Sundays in Balboa Park, according to the same report. Founded in 1945, the organization is the sixth-oldest operating youth orchestra in the country and trains more than 900 young musicians annually through the San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory. Around the same age, Orin began private lessons with professional trumpeter Tim Saeger, per the Union-Tribune.
Saeger, who has performed as a substitute and extra musician with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra since 2018, joined the ensemble as second trumpet in June 2026, according to the San Diego Symphony. He also teaches trumpet at Mount Carmel, Del Norte, Westview and Mira Mesa high schools. What began as roughly an hour of daily practice for Orin has grown to two hours a day, the newspaper reported, as his ambitions expanded alongside his skill.
A Foot in Both Classical and Jazz Worlds
Orin also joined the Young Lions Jazz Conservatory at Liberty Station, an organization founded by jazz trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos that mentors the next generation of jazz musicians, per the Union-Tribune. The conservatory, established in 2017, grew out of a weekly youth jazz performance series Castellanos started in 2013 at Balboa Park's Panama 66, according to the Young Lions Jazz Conservatory, and it mentors youth ages 11 to 18 through instruction and real-world stage experience.
The dual training shows in his repertoire. Orin plays both classical and jazz music and says he can improvise, the Union-Tribune reported, citing works like Clifford Brown's 1954 composition “Daahoud” alongside his classical concerto study. Brown was a jazz trumpet player and composer whose tunes remain staples for young improvisers.
National Recognition Piles Up
Beyond the Coronado win, Orin was selected as first-chair trumpet for the All-Southern California Middle School Symphonic Honor Band, an ensemble that draws roughly 1,000 top student musicians from thousands of applicants across the region, according to the newspaper's account. Selection for these Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association honor groups involves auditions, according to CWR Music Services.
He was also selected for the 2026 Youth Orchestra Los Angeles National Festival, a week-long camp involving dormitory living and group work that culminated in festival participants performing a full orchestra piece at Walt Disney Culture Hall, the Union-Tribune reported. The LA Phil describes the August festival as bringing together musicians through a Symphony Orchestra Program for ages 14 to 18 and an Overture Chamber Music Program for ages 12 to 14, with full-tuition, travel, and lodging scholarships — underscoring just how competitive Orin's selection was.
Ramona Roots, Juilliard Dreams
Orin's home base remains humble by comparison to the concert halls he now visits: Olive Peirce Middle School's Charles Nunn Performing Arts Center has served as a hub for local performing arts, with the Ramona Concert Association associated with the venue since 1985, according to the Ramona Concert Association. That rural anchor stands in contrast to Orin's weekly commutes to Balboa Park and Liberty Station and his stated ambitions.
Orin told the Union-Tribune he plans to pursue music for the rest of his life and hopes to attend Juilliard. The Juilliard School admits roughly 150 classical instrumentalists and vocalists nationwide per undergraduate class into its Bachelor of Music program each year, according to Juilliard, making it one of the most competitive music-school admissions processes in the country. The newspaper reported that Orin plans to enter national competitions again in the spring.
What to Expect on Opening Night
The Coronado Philharmonia Orchestra, which has grown to more than 80 members, was founded around 2021 by conductor and composer Osvaldo Mendoza to fill a gap in Coronado's classical music scene, according to the Coronado Times. The ensemble receives community grant funding and hosts annual classical concerts in the city. Hummel wrote his Trumpet Concerto in E major in 1803, and it remains a standard of the classical trumpet repertoire.
Orin's performance will open the Coronado Philharmonia's season at 7 p.m. on Oct. 24 at the Coronado Performing Arts Center, 650 D Ave., preceded by a pre-concert talk at 6:30 p.m., per the Union-T Tribune's reporting. Tickets range from $20 to $180. For reference, the City of Coronado page is linked here; finalists in the competition perform before judges, according to the Union-Tribune's reporting.
