(violin music) ("Sonata for Violin No.

5") (violin music continues) - Both my parents are very musical.

My dad used to play violin, my mom sings, plays a little piano, a little saxophone, so there's always music in my house.

And, you know, growing up, it was just kind of like, "Where's my violin?"

I just thought it was normal.

But I guess if I had to kind of pinpoint a moment early on in my study, it would be around the sixth grade.

I was forced to practice every single day for an hour leading up to an audition for a, in Texas we have all-region orchestra competitions and I actually ended up winning Concert Master at that audition in sixth grade, which really kind of showed me, you know, the payoff, I guess, that you get from the hard work that you would put into it.

Then from there, you know, high school, college and everything, I just kind of kept making music and it's just always been a part of my life, something that I love doing.

I think what I love most about playing the violin, I actually didn't get to kind of show you guys today 'cause I'm playing solo, but there's just something really special about playing with other musicians and using this as your instrument.

It's a very vocal instrument in nature, but it allows you to do things that I personally can't do with my voice.

And there's just a way that you breathe and you resonate with other musicians that you're playing with in a real physical space with this kind of instrument that's just super special, allows for a lot of nuance and subtlety and just like a really great time, I think, making music with other people.

So the piece actually originated as an assignment like I had in one of my classes.

I'm the kind of person who unfortunately does best with like a deadline so I had postponed actually getting to work on the assignment until the very last minute and I'm just sitting there at my desk, like plucking on the computer and it's kind of raining a little bit outside and so just kind of that hearing the droplets, you know, outside my window, just kind of plucking away at the instrument, and it's also really late and I'm not trying to wake up my roommate or my neighbors, you know, so the whole thing is kind of a murmur of this wash of sound, so that's kind of where the title came from.

It just has to do a little bit with the space and the moment that I was writing the piece in.

I'm not necessarily super concerned with a specific emotion that I want people to feel.

If there's, you know, there are some pieces that tell a story And so that's the kind of thing I might work really hard on conveying to an audience, but my main concern is really just like creating a space for people to kind of experience the music in and allow themselves to be vulnerable in that shared experience so that they can feel whatever they need to feel or whatever they want to feel in that moment.

I think my main concern is just actually more about the kind of communal experience and like creating a positive and a safe kind of environment for people to just commune together through music.

(lively violin music) ("Murmur") (solemn violin music) (lively violin music)