brava

It all started with a young 7 year old Fil-American girl from Michigan (USA) watching a cartoon character who was a smart girl and played the violin well. Then the young kid bravely requested her mom to take her to a music store to purchase the same string instrument, and asked for lessons right away. Since then she has put the violin into good use. From middleschool (John Marshall) to highschool (John Glenn), she has been an active member of her schools’ orchestra group and symphonic band. In fact in middleschool, she was awarded the National School Orchestra Award.

Obviously, her mentors have observed her adept technical skills despite her young age (now 15). She is into performing the works of Rimski-Korsakoff, Paganini and Vivaldi and would practice for almost three hours everyday.  For her, it is most important to carry out the music pieces the way the composer thought them to be – expression wise and style wise.

And last May, 2008, she was handpicked to do the outrageously difficult solo part of the 1970’s country composition, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” together with the school’s symphonic band in a public performance. She was required to do the material “con fuoco” or “with fire.” And she did. Everyone went abuzz after her astonishing performance.  With that I say to my one and only niece, “Brava, Ernestine.”