Consider me a “crossover” violinist — I’m classically trained, but I hold an equally deep passion for the composition and performance of non-classical genres, both acoustically and electrified.

When I was four years old, all my friends signed up for beginner violin class after school. My Mom told me I was NOT allowed to go. She asked me to pick any other activity - even instrument - because she knew how challenging violin would be for me. But naturally, being the most stubborn child in the world, I decided I would stop at nothing to learn the violin… just because she told me not to.

Every day for three months, I’d come home from pre-k and start tugging at my Mom’s shirt - poking her, prodding her, interrupting her conversations - really just finding the absolutely most annoying, interruptive, inconvenient time to ask her over and over again to change her mind. By that point, I was dying to play. She couldn’t take it anymore. She called the program and begged them to let me in late. I showed up to my first class, rearing to go with my macaroni box violin, only to find that all my friends had already quit. But I couldn’t lose face after all the trouble I kicked up. I forced myself to survive what my Mom had, in fact, correctly described as “the hardest thing I could possibly choose to learn” out of sheer refusal to let her win. I think my stubbornness got me through the first two years. But then, at some point, I realized that while I’d been busy proving I would stick with the violin no matter what, it had become the most beautiful part of my life.

When I went out into the world after college, it wasn’t clear if there would be a path for me in music. I was classically trained, but didn’t want to live the life of a classical violinist. I’d explored early music, fiddle, folk, and jazz, but didn’t feel the desire to pick just one. In truth, I didn’t even consider pursuing a career in violin at all - the mold didn’t fit me, and so I figured there wouldn’t be anywhere I’d fit.

I stumbled into my first few gigs by chance, new projects that called for a less rigid approach to the way of making things, and over the course of many years I found myself joyously at the heart of a community creating some of the most exciting music in America. Through a dedication to constant collaboration, research, and experimentation, I’ve found my calling as a violinist - that of an creator with a four-stringed, stubborn artistic medium that is capable of doing extraordinary, unknown things.