- My name is Caitlin Weinheimer and I play the violin at Columbia High School.

(intense violin music) (bright violin music) I started violin very young.

It was mostly my parents asked if I wanted to play, and I barely knew how to talk at that point, so I was like, "Sure."

And yeah, I've just played consistently ever since.

And I just got deeper and deeper into it.

I kept on challenging myself in different ways, just having more opportunities with it, which has been really, really cool.

So I've stuck with it ever since.

I played Fritz Kreisler's "Praeludium and Allegro" today, and I would describe it as a very showy piece, very virtuosic.

It has a lot of flare.

I really enjoy the challenge in it.

It has a beginning part that's, it's mainly quarter notes.

It's very straightforward and it allowed me a lot of creativity to go through and put my own kind of interpretation on it, especially since Kreisler didn't put a lot of dynamics and musical interpretations in it.

So he left a lot up to the performer to be creative, and I really enjoyed that about the piece.

(bright violin music) The "Allegro" section, it flies, and it was really good to exercise my memorization skills and my technique in those sections, There is a section toward the end that I consider sort of the cadenza part, because it's not a full concerto.

It doesn't have an actual cadenza, but that part, it moves a lot faster than the rest of the piece.

And so memorization in that part was a little bit challenging for me, but I did enjoy that.

My practice routine is whatever is speaking to me most in the moment is what I'm most motivated to practice.

I do have favorites sometimes, but yeah, a lot of it is just how I'm feeling in the moment because I know that that's how I'm going to be most motivated and productive to practice.

(bright violin music) I'd like to thank my nominator, Jessica Bellflower.

She was my private violin teacher from ages 9 to 15, and she has raised me as a musician in so many ways, and so many of her lessons have stuck with me since then.

So once my teacher, always my teacher.

I would also like to thank my current violin teacher, Henry Kao, of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.

He has opened my mind to a lot of new musical ideas and has believed in me so constantly for the entire time that I've studied with him.

(intense violin music) I definitely have to thank my family.

I definitely wouldn't be here without them.

They started me on the instrument when I was super young, and they have just continued to give me such endless support since then, and I owe my success to them.

(emotional violin music)