Piano Lessons in Richmond, CA

Instruments: Violin

If you have a Music Degree, what is it in (Performance, Education, Musicology, Theory, Composition, etc) and why did you choose that degree?
I hold a Masters of Music Degree in Violin Performance from the Kronberg Academy. I chose this degree because it was the most efficient way for me to graduate from college while touring. I studied with Christian Tetzlaff who is one of my favorite violinists living today. I feel grateful to have had the opportunity to practice with him in that way and to listen to him play live performances and masterclasses both of which I learned a miraculous amount that which I take with me just as much as I take with with me from a private lesson to me.

What is your dream piece to perform and why?
My dream piece is the Elgar Violin Concerto in B minor. This piece is one that I listened to on the school bus as a child going to school. I remember being sleepy-eyed in the morning and lovingly cradled and awakened by the silky depth that Mr. Perlman explored with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim ... in this beautiful rendition he made me passionate to learn and yearn! I am excited to share it with everyone I know as a fellow Elgar afficiondo recommended: his music is attuned to ‘smiling through tears.’

If you weren't a musician what do you think you'd be doing instead?
I have a passion for meditation/mindfulness practice and Buddhism. If I did not play the violin I would do something that furthered me along that path such as a monastic title. I would also love to write and explore the nature of creativity through investigations of philsophical and political thought. Having many mad scientist friends and/or people that love and are passionate about science within the scope of my reach, I am fascinated by quantum mechanics and how it applies to consciousness from a viewpoint of a child with the mentality of Curious George! I am most in love with yoga, riding bikes and am a wannabe surfer and snowboarder.

What is your favorite style/genre of music to play and why?
My favorite styles of music range from Module Jazz Constructs to Contemporary 80s New Wave Form to Western Classical Music to Folk, Bluegrass and Celtic Paths! I enjoy listening to country music as well as Hiphop R&b classics and electronic music and have a soul crush on singer-songwriters who, to me are, the present-day Schuberts and Schumanns! I love to play with the extremeties of sound and texture within classical music and am inspired by improvisational aspects of multiple genres intermingling together in fusions and worlds and universes and synergies of languages and colors. Poly! Yes!

If you play more than one instrument, how did you decide to start playing the second? (Or 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc)!
I do not play another instrument as ordinarily as I do the violin! With immense struggle and the power of intention, I can learn to understand chordal progressions on the piano. I feel it extremely beneficial to explore more than one instrument as one in relationship to the other can trigger and enable a more comprehensive and wholistic understanding of each instrument seperately as well as how they work synchronstically with one another in order to pay homage to one another. I also especially love to SING! I recommend this as a supplement for everyone no matter which instrument one is learning to play and regardless of even playing an instrument that is not so coloquially us.

Does music run in your family? Tell us a little about your musical family members.
Music does not run in my family that I know of officially. My two older brothers played the saxophone snd trumpet and were I feel extremely intuitive and musical and creative. I have a feeling that though music was not apparently streamlined within or among our ancestry gives us no indication that the spirit of music did not spread its wings through the formulations of creativity in various other art forms. Who knows?! I do find that the talent within my immediate family though not taken further than highschool is an indicator of previous successors of an analogous mind stream.

When did you decide to become a professional musician? Was it a gradual decision or was there a defining moment for you?
I decided to become a professional musician at the age of nine. I did it through strong intention, hard work, dedication to my craft and parents that supported me not financially but spiritually throughout the journey. It came with much sacrifice and much toil. It also came with enlightened action. I am without a doubt at a crossroads one that I cannot imgine myself at without the depths of deep immediate life that I have experienced through various friendships along the path which I forever have none other to thank but Spirit itself! So forgive me for this last note of immediate spirituality but now I find myself leaving the immediacy of this present moment to take a giant breath of fresh air! To be or not to be? This is the question! Cheers for a wonderful Holiday and BEYOND!

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