As the daughter of two accomplished musicians, there was never really a question that music would play a key role in Emma D.’s life.
“My dad, he’s a composer. He’s provost at Houghton University and writes music for Houghton’s choir,” said Emma, a senior at Avon High School. “And my mom is a pianist. Her whole side of the family is very musical, so music’s kind of been in my blood.”
While the piano didn’t end up sticking for Emma - “I was in lessons but it kind of fell through. I wasn’t that good at it,” - the violin did along with her favorite instrument, her voice.
“On voice I’m not completely perfect but I’ve performed more on it,” she said. “I’m more comfortable with it.”
While Emma’s assessment of her own vocal ability may be less than perfect, the 100% score she earned for her performance of “Poor Wandering One” from “Pirates of Penzance” at the New York State School Music Association solo-festival last spring would seem to suggest otherwise.
This past summer, Emma learned her perfect score had earned her a spot in NYSSMA’s Conference All-State Treble Choir, which will perform this weekend at Eastman Theater’s Kodak Hall in Rochester.
NYSSMA’s Conference All-State ensembles are highly selective and draw their membership from across all of New York State. In a typical year, some 6,500 high school sophomores and juniors audition for a spot in one of the ensembles while about 600 are ultimately selected.
Last year, Emma was selected as an alternate for the Conference All-State Mixed Choir. When she opened her letter from NYSSMA this past summer to see if she’d been selected, she was disappointed to read she’d once again been selected as an alternate.
That disappointment proved fleeting however as Emma soon realized the letter was in regards to her violin audition for NYSSMA’s Conference All-State Orchestra for which she also earned a perfect, 100% score.
“I got the letter and it said alternate so I was upset, but then I realized it was for orchestra, so I was like ‘Oh wait,’” Emma recalled. “Then I saw there was another letter saying I got into the treble choir.”
Emma received her sheet music earlier this school year and has been practicing hard ever since with the help of Avon Vocal Music Teacher Kristen Maxield and her mom, Carrie, a talented pianist who accompanies Avon’s choral ensembles.
“We’re doing six songs and some of them are kind of easy but others are pretty challenging,” said Emma. “The one I’m most scared about is ‘Rosas Pandan’ because it goes really fast and it’s in a different language, I think Filipino. My favorite one, though, is called ‘The Marketplace.’ It’s really pretty. It’s slow and I love triplets and there’s a lot of triplets, it has a nice piano part, I don’t know - it’s just nice.”
While Emma feels pretty good about where she’s at with each of the pieces, she’s the first to admit she’s a bit nervous to be among such an accomplished group of musicians.
“In the letter I got they said when you first check in, immediately they usher you into a room and get into a smallish group of 6 or 9 people and they test you on how well you know the music,” she said. “You have to sing it in that small group and if you’re not at a mastery level, I think they put you in a different area so that you can learn it, so I’ve spent hours working on all the music because of that. I’m actually terrified. I’m sure it’ll be OK but I’m also still like - there’s certain parts that’re really hard.”
Emma will head up to Rochester this afternoon and rehearse today, all of Friday and all of Saturday before her concert Saturday night.
“I don’t know anyone there so I guess I’ll have to make friends,” she said. “I’m a little stressed out about that because musicians are really intense sometimes from my experience. Especially in orchestra because they have chairs - first chair, second chair and so on, but in choir they don’t have that so I’m hoping it’s more chill.”
With her senior year of high school already nearly a third of the way gone, Emma’s started thinking about what comes after she graduates.
She’s hoping to pursue a career in music therapy and is particularly interested in working with elderly Alzheimer’s patients or special needs children.
“Different parts of the brain work with music that might not work well otherwise, so people with Alzheimer’s - they get certain signals in their brain from music that can help them remember things,” she explained. “It can be therapeutic too for people with special needs - it can help them express themselves or
So far, she’s whittled her college options down to three finalists - Houghton University, her parents’ alma mater, Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Ind., and Biola University in La Miranda, a city in southeast Los Angeles County in California.
“I’m definitely learning towards Indiana Wesleyan,” she said. “The program is really good, it's a nice area.”
And while Emma’s had a lot of on her plate recently - she participated in NYSSMA’s Area All-State Treble Choir last month, portrayed the Ghost of Christmas Past in the Avon Drama Club’s annual production of “Scrooge” and is constantly rehearsing as a member of the Hochstein Youth Symphony Orchestra - music isn’t just a chore.
When it’s time to pack up her violin or put her sheet music away, you’re apt to find her pulling up some Arcadian Wild on her Spotify.
“They’re a folk band with some contemporary and classic vibes. They’re epic,” she said. “It’s three people - a fiddle girl who sings also, a guitar guy who sings and a mandolin guy who sings and they have a bassist, too, sometimes. I just really like them.”
The Conference All-State Treble Choir will perform Saturday, Dec. 7 at 7:30 p.m. in Eastman Theater’s Kodak Hall, 26 Gibbs St., Rochester. Tickets are $35 and can be purchased online by clicking here.
Photo courtesy of Carrie Davies
Avon senior Emma D., left, rehearses one of her Conference All-State Treble Choir pieces with her mom, Carrie.