I first started playing violin in elementary school because my school district offered a free after school program. I will never forget how consumed by wonder my tiny soul was when I played in an orchestra— the magic of being responsible for this puzzle piece that when combined with a room of swelling sounds and feeling hearts became something so large and powerful it felt supernatural. that was when music became my favorite thing in the world. when I was 12 I quit because competitive classical killed my joy for it. a couple years later my dad was rifling through the closet and was like “oh look, your grandfather’s fiddle.” I was like. HUH?? I had just grown big enough to play a full size. I unquit. I’ve been playing that violin ever since. That year I started taking lessons from an incredible musician named Javier Orman who showed me I could improvise any genre if I learned to play by ear and follow my intuition. I would bring in my favorite Beatles songs, or Brazilian ones from any member of the Gilberto family. The violin became the doorway through which I could understand music. When this opportunity arose I was 1. flabbergasted 2. very daunted at the idea of reading music again. But when I received the sheet music it translated to my fingers immediately. I think because John Williams has the ability to distill the most profound emotions and worlds into the simplest most compelling beautiful melodies, which is mastery. Music is always where I start when building a character— I got to spend months inside of the Star Wars scores while filming, developing a love like so many across the world for Binary Sunset in particular. This was one of the greatest honors of my life and I will never forget it!!! THANK YOU to John for this incredible privilege, to the engineers for taking the time out of their virtuoso filled days to welcome me and my grandpa’s fiddle onto the stage, to Lucasfilm for bringing me into the Star Wars family, to all of the music teachers who instilled my love of music, to LAUSD for offering free music lessons to public schools. ANYWAYS HERE’S WONDERWALL