violin

I've been playing the violin for as long as I can remember-I started taking lessons when I was 8 years old. In middle school and high school, I spent 5 years in the Stamford Young Artists Philharmonic organization, where my love of music was nurtured under my conductor and private teacher, Salvatore Princiotti. In 1992 we played for President Bush at one of his campaign stops in Westchester, NY

After high school, I almost stopped playing. I auditioned for the Cornell Symphony two years in a row, but both times, I fell apart from nerves. Despite how crushed I was, I never totally could get myself to give up playing.

Finally, at UCONN, I started playing again. I joined the Willimantic Orchestra, a local community group in the Storrs area. Since I sang with the UCONN chorus, I was unable to join the orchestra since the 2 groups rehearse at the same time. I quickly recovered my rusty hand skills and improved greatly due to playing challenging music above the level of the Stamford Youth Orchestra. I played with this group for the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons.

In January of 1999, I was one of only 100 instrumentalists chosen nationwide from 1500 audition tapes to participate in the MidAmerica National Festival Orchestra. What made this even more satisfying was that I was one of only 40 violinists taken from 1000 audition tapes. For one magical long weekend, I had the opportunity to be with 100 of the best amateur musicians in the country to work with Maestro Lukas Foss and perform the Tchaikovsky Symphonie Pathetique at Carnegie Hall. It was an extremely intense weekend, I never played so much in my life. My arms and wrists never hurt so badly, but in the end, the incredible concert made it all worthwhile.

In the Fall of 1999, I joined the Farmington Symphony Orchestra, another community group, although considerably better than the Willimantic Orchestra due to being in a more urban area. I had never been in a group that played so many concerts of difficult music in one year. I played 6 concerts in the 1999-2000 season but was only able to play the last concert of the 2000-2001 season due to conflicts with work and school. Unfortunately I will not be back with this group for a while as I am at Tufts Dental in Boston and currently a member of the Melrose Symphony Orchestra.

Needless to say, this group forced me to greatly improve both in terms of skill and overall musicianship. During one concert, I had the opportunity to play and sing in the same concert! The orchestra was doing the Faure Requiem with a local choir(Simsbury Light Opera Chorus). Our condcutor wanted to reduce the size of the orchestra, so I asked to sing the Faure, since I had sung it before. He agreed to let me play the first half ot the concert with the orchestra and then join the choir to sing the Faure in the second half of the concert! It was great to see my name printed twice in the program! Below are a program cover and program from the FVSO.

I am currently a member of the Melrose Symphony Orchestra. The cover of the concert program for the 2001-2002 season is below. Also, some pictures from the 2001 Christmas Pops concert are beneath. It's a much needed diversion from the rigors of dental school!