On March 24th 2019, I had the opportunity to play a solo at Carnegie Hall in New York! I was 13 at the time. My family decided to make a whole trip out of the experience, so we decided to go to New York a couple days early!!!! In order for me to do that, I would of had to miss a lot of school… so we had to talk to my principle about it. When we told her, she started crying!! It was amazing! She was totally okay with me missing a couple of extra days of school, she even said it would count as a school related absence!
By the time March came, I was so excited to go to New York! I found out later that my grandma and grandpa, my other grandma& some friends from California decided to come too! The hotel we stayed in was right across from Carnegie Hall, I could see it from my hotel room! The day of the performance, I was very nervous because I had never done anything like this before.
After I got signed in, I went back stage and waited for my turn to practice with the accompanist. Everyone backstage was very nice. I had practiced my solo many times before with an accompanist, but never with this man. He was very nice and liked to joke around. The only problem was I only got 5 minutes to practice with him. So I basically had to hope that nothing terrible would happen during the performance. By the time everyone was getting there for the performance to start, I was starting to get nervous.
Before I knew it, I was backstage waiting for the person in front of me to finish. The pianist was waiting with me back stage and was making me laugh which was helping with my nerves. Then I heard the person in front of me finish. This was it. All that I had been practicing for since last December was all about to pay off. I walked on stage and everyone started clapping. The whole auditorium was full. I felt so special.
The piano started playing the introduction to my solo. I came in at the perfect time! The whole thing went by so fast! The end of my piece has a couple really high notes, and no matter how many times I practiced them, they were always really hard for me to get. BUT….. I hit each of the notes perfectly!!!
I had so much fun and I am very thankful for this amazing opportunity!!
Here is the video my dad “snuck” of me playing! We were told not to video tape and that if we did, they would confiscate the recording device. But… my dad could close his case while recording and tuck it into his suit pocket. Please enjoy!!
