TO SUM UP YOUR LIFE’S DREAMS IN 300-500 WORDS IS SUCH A STRESSFUL EXPERIENCE, and it took me like 2.5 months to finally be able to do it. This might not be the most beautiful prose, but it comes straight from the heart and I thought it was worth sharing. To all my friends in classical music, waking up every day and working incredibly hard to become great artists, just know that your work is ALREADY worthwhile (at least for me) and that if you continue on this path you will truly make an irreplacable mark on the world around you. I love you all so much!

Four years at conservatory and four years at an arts high school have taught me that becoming a great musician is an Olympic feat. It takes sacrifice every single day. If you want to become truly great, you must be willing to put in the focused time. You must be willing to practice etudes in the morning instead of sleeping in, to rehearse on Friday night instead of going on a date, to spend your summers at festivals instead of out on the water. Being a classical musician is not a job, it is a lifestyle. Pamela Frank once said, when asked what her religion was, that it was music. If we were making these sacrifices simply to win competitions or to achieve fame, we wouldn’t make them. Every time I make a sacrifice for music, I make it because I truly believe that music can change the world. Life is exceptionally difficult, for everyone. If it hasn’t been hard yet, eventually it will be. I’ve battled skin cancer and endometriosis. I’ve had anxiety and panic and depression. I have watched the people I love struggle with mental and physical illnesses and I have tried to hold those people up and care for them the best that I can. I have failed and I have been disappointed. I’ve been in love, and I’ve had my heart broken. I have knelt on the ground crying and begging God to change my world. Every answer to these prayers has come in the shape of notes. Music reminds me every day, and in every concert, that life is beautiful.The resolution is always worth the tension. The triumph is always worth the struggle. The joy is always worth the grief. Life is exceptionally difficult, but it is also exceptionally beautiful. Classical music is also exceptionally difficult, but exceptionally beautiful. The goal that gets me up and into the practice room every day, is that in every concert I will play for someone that is broken and that my playing will make that person feel whole. If I can heal hearts one concert at a time for the rest of my life, I will feel that I have achieved my purpose as a musician, as a violist, and as a human being.