About Me

I am a 17 year old student of Sturgis East Charter School. I originally started Symphonly in 2021 for the Martha’s Vineyard Charter School for my CAS project. The website is a nice platform to showcase some of my music & art journey through the years. The nature of my creative endeavors makes this a nice format to organize and share. These past four years have been a big transitional part of my life because I had begun my journey as a high schooler after being homeschooled for 6 years prior. I live, learn and create in the small seaside town of Woods Hole, Massachusetts. My main interests are violin, art and sailing. I also love to write and I can often be seen in different yoga poses and talking about holistic health. For certain though violin and art has always been the most valued and honored discipline in my life. Even before I was born, my mom said she saw me as a violinist and bought me a very small violin at an antique shop hoping I would someday learn to play. At the age of 3 I began my journey with Ms. Carol Sykes my very first teacher. She was like a grandmother to me. I can still remember the wild stories of her childhood which were snuck in at every lesson and made our time together more than just a lesson but rather a very deep relationship. A time of bonding and when time was just for us and the music. Those early years where so dear and special.

At age four through six it was just my mom and me and we became intentional gypsies, staying in different places to experience the freedoms we would never know again. We roamed across the Country to Eugene, Oregon and stayed in a garden cottage exploring fairies and added to stay kittens to our caravan. Onto Mendocino California, where we were invited to a secluded cabin high in the mountains finding peace in the quiet. To storms we had to find shelter and open meadows to watch shooting starts. Then circling back to our beloved Berkshires for a year at a Waldorf community in Harlemville, N.Y. where free roaming cows would greet us on our walk to the farm store and most of us would swim naked at the pond. Upon our final return home we moved to Chilmark Marthas Vineyard, for three magical years. This was where my most vivid memories were formed, especially at the Chilmark school. Those years of complete freedom lasted the longest and I never wanted them to end. During this time, I took lessons from Becky Barkus Tinus and discovered the world of pottery at featherstones art community.

My life completely changed when we welcomed my baby brother, Lowen to our family and then four years later, my little sister, Everleigh. At age 8 we said good-bye to Chilmark and moved back to Woods Hole across the pond as they refer to it. The next six years were schooled from here and the woods and the sea and I would not return to a regular school until 9th grade. I was homeschooled in a way that allowed me to spend as much time I needed to entrench myself into a subject. in 6th grade I spend a good part of the year studying the medievaI years because it was so fascinating and so much to really learn in this era. The style of teaching at home was to integrate a subject into all the disciplines of academics. I became an expert at some of my favorite interests like history, natural science, music and forever creating art. It was a very different life style than other kids. Our time frame was a much slower pace. In my developing years it was not how much I learned but the quality of which I absorbed it. When I finally went back to a traditional school, the impact of this was extremely apparent. My mom did not allow any technology or television until age 9 but even then only shows like “Cosmos” or old movies. It was a time of slow living, good food and many walks on the beach. I had an insatiable appetite for books. I would find color in the grays, play my violin and be in nature. This was my world and it allowed me to bloom into the person I am today.

I never thought about going into violin or anything particular in my life growing up, I lived in the moment so I think this did two things. Firstly I did not take advantage of all that abundance of time to practice while I was homeschooled unlike my peers I later met at NEC. Secondly, I never found my music or violin as a task or a thing I had to do until my high school years when I realized I wanted to pursue this as an actual career. The relationship and the energy of my music was always played in love and desire. I believe this also shapes how I play and learn music today. I would say I am almost grateful that it was not an ever-present demand but rather a beautiful friend I would reach out to in the darkness of isolation to speak through my heart. In my childhood years I took lessons from an array of different teachers as we expanded farther outside of Cape Cod. It was wonderful to begin this path with a brilliant teacher named Yoko who helped improve my playing quite a bit. A few years ago, she introduced me to the New England Conservatory in Boston, a well known musical college and Prepatory school. Auditioning for NEC opened a whole new door to the world of music. I saw the talent and variety within the NEC community and immediately fell in love with it. Since then, I’ve always had role models to look up to and levels to meet, participating in their Prepatory orchestra, and chamber music. I started taking lessons under two new teachers, Jean Chun, who is also very good and helps me a lot in different ways the other teachers missed like my bow hand. Later at age 15 I began lessons with Magdalena Richter who had really helped me in so many ways in starting double stops and adding harder repretoire. She expanded my scales practice and had enough confidence in my abilities to show me more challenging pieces which I loved. When I got into the lottery of a blue ribbon IB high school, “Sturgis Charter School”, my time restraints proved extremely hard to maintain practice and since then I have honestly felt like I am constantly being pulled by need to practice the violin and the never ending high demands my IB Sturgis puts on me. It has been a constant struggle and my hope is, that I can be accepted into a school in music performance so that my practice time is honored and encouraged.

At age 16 to present I am studying under Peter Zazofsky and for the remainder of my years at NEC Prepatory. He is such an amazing teacher and I feel so grateful to have his advanced lessons help bring me to where I am today. Although he advices against going into music as a career simply because it is such a highly competitive field as well not a great income once out of college. I am however choosing to apply to college in music performance. It is my intention to be true to who I am a violinist, and an artist. I want the opportunity to have intentional time honored to go forward and improve my playing as well as eventually teach violin in my hometown in my own studio while also creating art. Perhaps it will lead me to a coffee house where classical music is performed and art adorns the walls. Or to be a physical therapist who understands the damage musicians place on their bodies and that is attached later to a degree, or perhaps I pursue art director or manager of an art studio in the daytime and teach susuki violin after school hours. Whoever it is, I truly see myself in a college that honors me as a violin performer and the time and direction to go forward improving my skills. To be apart of a music community to share and rejoice in our love of the music. To reach for my beloved violin in the corner with intention and purpose.

So much has transpired in the world in my four years of high school. A world Pandemic, unrest in Ukraine and now the Middle East. Global warming and the increased knowledge our generation is being left a world that will be quite different than that of our parents. Going forward in this, the awareness of how much will change in these next 5+ years while I am at College wherever that one may be. There will be highs and lows. In all this now, in the midst of college applications and campus tours, spiritual droughts and soulful bursts. It does not escape me that while I am recording my pre-screening for colleges, children across the globe are fighting for their life. The realization of a world that seems so unpredictably scary at times only makes me cling closer to my music and my canvas. In this there is healing and calm. It is in the quiet in between the notes and the blank of a white canvas that I wish to fill with my light and love.