College Graduation!

May 18, 2019, 8:34 AM · Not a ton I wanted to say this morning, but... Thought I’d do a quick post anyway.

It’s graduation weekend! I can’t believe I started writing this blog when I was finishing up freshman year of high school, and now I’m finishing up my senior year of college! I am very excited for what’s in store for me at UIUC.

This summer will hopefully be a very musical one! I have a few students I will be teaching both violin and piano this summer, so that will be fun to bring my violin to their lessons and be a teacher! For young students, but still, it will be wonderful exposure and to see if I’d like teaching in the future.

Finally, I have started my summer composing: a symphony! I have sketched out a waltz movement that starts in 3 and shifts to 5, and a slow intro that transitions to what could be the finale. I’ve had to take a break from it for this busy weekend, but I’m excited to come back to really working on it throughout the summer. I might take my time with this one and finish it over multiple summers, or as I start with my new composition professor (preferably the former so I can focus on writing smaller pieces to get performed, but we’ll see what happens!).

But for now, graduation! It is crazy how quickly it’s come. I am performing my Saxophone Sonata I wrote November 2016 for a big Honors Convocation in three and a half hours from now - a piece that has had many performances so far! Later this afternoon will be my final orchestra concert with this orchestra. That will be weird, and I’ve had no time to really process any of this since I’ve been so busy packing and preparing housing visits for UIUC and small composition walks. Tomorrow will be big and sad, but like I said, I’m still very much looking forward to what’s to come!

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Laurie Niles

May 18, 2019 at 02:54 PM · Congratulations, Joshua!

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College Graduation!

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