Not Just For Notes: Love for Connection at NYO2 

    By the end of our rehearsal on the Carnegie Hall stage, I found myself wishing I could hold on to the moment just a little longer. 

   It wasn’t sadness exactly. More than anything, I felt grateful: grateful for the music, for the people around me, and for how much this experience had come to mean in less than three weeks. It was strange because the concerts were still ahead of us, and there was still so much to look forward to, but part of me already knew that the experience was beginning to slip away.

    In less than three weeks, these people had become such a big part of my everyday life that it was hard to imagine suddenly not seeing them all the time. I think that was one of the biggest surprises of the National Youth Orchestra 2 (NYO2) for me. I honestly did not realize how much love and appreciation I would come to have for this group of passionate peers, or how grateful I would feel simply to make music alongside them. I knew I would learn a lot, grow as a musician, and have the incredible opportunity to perform at Carnegie Hall and later travel to the Dominican Republic. What I did not expect was how much the people around me would shape not only the experience itself but also remind me of why I love music in the first place.

    From the first few rehearsals, there was this energy that came from being surrounded by so many people who genuinely cared about music. Everyone was talented, of course, but what stood out to me more was how passionate everyone was. People wanted to get things right, but not just for the sake of being correct. They were listening, reacting, trying things, and giving so much of themselves to the music. Working with conductors Yiran Zhao and Sam Hollister, and later with Mei-Ann Chen, made me realize how much more there is to orchestral playing than just knowing your own part. Sometimes one comment from a conductor would completely change and recognize how I heard a section. Sometimes we would repeat a passage again and again, and then suddenly something would click and the whole orchestra would feel different. I started listening more to what was happening around me instead of only focusing on what was on my stand, and those moments became some of my favorite parts of the experience.

    One of the things that surprised me most about NYO2 was how naturally the intensity of rehearsals existed alongside everything else. We could spend hours completely laser-focused, listening to every detail and pushing ourselves, and then the moment rehearsal ended, the room would shift. Everyone would be joking around, talking over meals, or turning something random into an inside joke that somehow lasted the rest of the program. I started to realize that those moments were not separate from the music at all. If anything, becoming close to people made the music feel even better. The more I knew the people around me, the more naturally I listened to them. I knew their personalities, the way they joked around, the way they acted when they were tired, and eventually even the way they played started to feel familiar.

    I remember feeling that especially during our dress rehearsal before the Carnegie Hall concert. I looked around the stage and suddenly thought about how weird it was that only a few weeks earlier, most of these people had been complete strangers to me. Now I felt completely comfortable around them, and I had already made memories with them that I knew I was going to miss. That was when another thought really hit me: we would probably never all play together again. Of course, some of us will see each other again, and some of us might end up in the same orchestra or at the same festival someday, but this exact group of people, all together at this exact point in our lives, was probably something that would only happen once. 

    That made me look around differently. I want to express my gratitude for every single person there, even people I had not gotten especially close to, because every person had become part of the sound and part of what those three weeks meant to me. If even one person had been different, the experience would have been different too. I remember just wanting to take everything in, not only because we were sitting on the Carnegie Hall stage, but because I knew I was there with these people.

    The concert itself was unforgettable, and later we traveled to the Dominican Republic for five days and performed two more concerts there. By that point, being together felt so natural. We had spent so much time rehearsing, talking, traveling, and just being around each other that the orchestra no longer felt new. The music felt different too. I felt like I could enjoy what was happening around me instead of only thinking about my own playing. 

    There are moments when I am playing where I feel almost completely lost inside the music, but at the same time, I am very aware of everyone around me. I am having my own experience with the music, but so is everyone else, and somehow all of those separate experiences are happening together. It is hard to explain, but it almost feels like a high. You are completely in the moment. You are listening to yourself but also to everyone around you. You are making your own choices, but everything you do is connected to what someone else is doing. I think that is why ensemble playing has always felt so special to me. Music can be incredibly personal, but when you play with other people, you get to have that personal experience while also sharing it with everyone else.

    When I think back on NYO2 now, of course I think about Carnegie Hall, the Dominican Republic, the rehearsals, and the concerts. But mostly, I think about the people. I think about how quickly we became close and how the little moments between rehearsals ended up meaning just as much to me as the performances. I think about how lucky I feel that, for those three weeks, I got to make music with that exact group of people. I wish I could thank every person there for what they added to the experience, even if they do not realize they added anything at all. I went into NYO2 already knowing that I loved music, but I think I left understanding a little more clearly why I love it.