It took me three months of begging to get my Mom to sign me up for violin. Wouldn’t it be poetic if the the reason for my persistence had been more profound than feeling left out after all my little friends signed up? I’d like to think it was..

So there I was at last, proudly strutting into the program three months behind with my macaroni box violin in tow, only to find that all my friends had quit. But at that point, after months of pleading and poking and annoying my poor Mom in that unbearable way every parent of a persistently stubborn four-year-old understands, I couldn’t back down. 

And so, in the way of every violinist before me, I decided that no matter how frustrating and challenging a road lay ahead of us, my violin and I would bind ourselves together as lifelong companions — sometimes enemies, sometimes friends — forever inseparable.

I stumbled into my first real gigs by chance, new projects that called for a far more exploratory approach than I’d believed to exist. In truth, I’d never intended to pursue violin professionally. From my knowledge, there would be no path for me as an instrumentalist in the industry. I was classically trained, but didn’t want to live the life of a classical violinist. I’d explored and loved early music, fiddle, folk, and jazz, but didn’t feel truly fulfilled within any of those genres longterm. And more than that, my whole life I’d believed that the commitment to pursue my other artistic passions as a performer, singer, and voice artist would make meeting the demands of a violinist’s career while maintaining quality in playing impossible.

It took time. Step by step, irresistibly pulled towards one new project after another, my violin and I joyously found ourselves at the heart of a robust artistic community reimagining the world of music and the role it plays in society. We’re at the start of a new artistic era that compounds genres and mediums we once thought incompatible, fueled by collective encouragement and collaboration. The role of modern violinists must be dictated not by the restrictions of historic and social perceptions of what we should be, but by the needs of the art we are called to create. What more exciting and fulfilling life could my violin and I have hoped for?