Really About Me
Throughout my childhood, my birthday parties always included some kind of educational activity and some kind of creative activity. We went to the science museum and saw visiting exhibits at the art gallery; took a trip to a potter's studio and collected seashells at the beach. We made mosaics and necklaces, rock boxes and clay fossils. Perhaps it is no surprise that both of these elements have been present in my life since that early time - just as pronounced today as always. Originally from Houston, Texas, I am also still a Texan at heart. I love seeing an expanse of sky and watching the sun sink into the horizon; I'm not phased by driving in torrential rain and not shocked when I see women in cowboy hats behind the wheel of a pick-up truck. However, I chose to move East for college and replaced my familiar "y'all" with "you guys" within a week at Yale University. During college, I spent time trying out all of my serious academic interests - neurobiology, English literature, cognitive science, journalism. Much of my social life revolved around the Yale Symphony - and while I was not practicing or studying viola privately with anyone, it was primarily with these musicians (most of whom were not planning to pursue a professional career in music) that I found my home. However, a few of them were actually anticipating a life as a musician, and just before my senior year I decided that, after experimenting with so many of my other interests, I wanted to return to music. I graduated from Yale with a BA in English and then embarked on what I see as Part Two of my musical life.
I began studying with Ira Weller in the fall of 2002 and continued with him while I worked towards a Master's of Music at SUNY-Purchase. These years were wonderful and difficult, and I often questioned my choice to leave behind so much of what I knew by diving into this field of competition with colleagues who had spent the last four years in practice rooms and music history classes - not conducting field research in Bali or attending Master's Teas with Dave Eggers. However, after completing my MM, I moved to Boston to work with and later act as Teaching Assistant for Martha Katz at the New England Conservatory. While at NEC, I began to get back in touch with my interest in musical outreach projects - and also with my interest in writing. I organized several projects that brought music into Boston schools, which I visited alone in my first year and with a quartet in my second year. I was awarded an Albert Schweitzer Fellowship for 2006-07 and designed and taught a music appreciation class and violin lessons at an after-school program in South Boston. And I began to write. I was invited to blog about these experiences on the NEC Today website and soon began to freelance for Strings Magazine.
The Academy - A Program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute, a two-year fellowship that provides performance opportunities around New York, professional development support, and teaching experience - emerged in late 2006, and I immediately recognized how perfectly the fellowship program seemed to meld my joint interests in performing and work in the community. I entered the Academy as a fellow in 2007 and relocated to Manhattan, which has been another entirely new experience, in many ways. My feet somehow made their way to the ground - after equal numbers of days spent floating happily among the clouds and treading water and hoping not to drown - and now I have begun to establish a life here. I teach at the Long Island City High School in Queens as a part of my Academy school residency and last year appeared in eight mixed chamber ensemble concerts at Carnegie, also with The Academy. I have also begun playing with the Orchestra of St. Luke's and the New York City Ballet, as well as other freelance ensembles, and am tremendously enjoying this work. In addition to the freelance playing, just recently I have also begun to write for The Strad magazine. While I've spent many summers at music festivals (most recently at the Tanglewood Music Center), I spent the summer of 2008 sampling the administrative side of the music world, working part-time at the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall. (Which, I must say, I loved! Although it did bring up certain performer vs. administrator issues...)
And that's me. I'm also a runner and a yogi, a dog-lover and a voracious apple-eater. I'm slightly obsessed with the number seven and with paisley designs. I listen to lyrics. I like to count things. I crave being near the ocean and would rather be hiking than skiing. Sometimes I write in haiku and I love to pose abstract questions of the people around me. If you were a piece of furniture, what would you be??