My mom always said my journey as a flutist began when she was pregnant with me; she was playing in the Rose City flute choir all 9 months! The running joke was that being surrounded by all the flute music would make me a flutist, and well here I am!

 

I loved to watch my mom play flute, piano, and sing. I wanted to be like her when I grew up. I always loved to help people and bring a smile to their faces; to do even something little to bring someone joy made me feel like I had purpose. The idea that I could heal someone or ease their pain felt like the obvious path for that spirit, so I thought I wanted to become a doctor. However, when I experienced the world of music, it all came so naturally to me. I would sing everywhere, the car, watching TV, eating yummy food, even in the bathroom at a restaurant! I wanted to learn an instrument so badly.

 

In the 6th grade I joined the middle school band, wanting to be just like mom, but it seemed every couple months my flute would stop working. One day, my mom took it into the shop to give the flute, the same one she played on when she was in middle school, an overhaul! It came back looking so shiny, and it played so well! 

 

Well, until it didn’t. 

 

About 1 month later, it stopped playing again. From that moment on I didn’t have another reliably working flute for 4 years! That was until I started taking private flute lessons the Summer before my Senior year of high school. My flute teacher offered to teach me how to work on my own instruments, and soon I was working on any flute I could get my hands on. I would sit in the choir room during my free period, trying to fix the seized mechanism on the school flutes, frequently stabbing my fingers with a screwdriver in the process. I completed my first real repair job in the Spring of my Senior year; a Trevor James flute that I repadded for a friend. Its owner and I competed against each other in the district solo competition together, my first ever solo competition. I didn’t qualify for state, but the flute I worked on and the flutist who owned it did! I knew then that I had found my calling and way to help others in need.