According to my parents, I was about five years old when I was attending my sister's piano recital and there was someone playing violin. I looked up at my mom and said, "I want to play that!". So, I started playing violin. I only remember a little of my early days learning to play, but I'm sure my family remembers the screeching sounds of a young child fumbling through the learning process of the Suzuki method. Luckily after a few years, I got better - and I even learned to sight-read as I went on to playing in music camps and orchestras. One summer I took a break to take piano lessons, and I multi-tasked for a year or two in high school band playing trumpet and then french horn. I continued to play violin through the end of high school with formal lessons and in orchestras at the local university, before I took a break from formal musical training during my college years, as I instead focused on becoming a scientist and engineer.
Near the beginning of graduate school at Texas, a rotation student in my lab extended an invitation during group meeting to come see him play music at a local bar. I went and listened, and afterwards I mentioned to him that I played violin and I thought his music would go well with some fiddle. Turns out another friend of his from his grad program had quite the voice and had the same idea, so next time Johnny played, Emily and I joined for a few songs. Johnny knew a drummer, and I knew a bassist, so Maggie's Harem (named for my dog) was born. Together with Boris and Cameron, we played together for a few years until Cameron graduated and moved to Sweden for a postdoc. Emily had another friend who played bass, so Brian joined us for a few years until he graduated and Cameron came back from Sweden and rejoined us. Eventually we all graduated and went our separate ways, but you can check out more about our group and our music at our Youtube page, our Instagram page, our Twitter profile, or our Facebook page. I loved playing with these great friends, and I miss those days!
These days, I rarely get to play for an audience, but have occasionally played with Johnny in weddings for friends like two of my former bandmates. More recently, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to play a few times as part of the opening quartet for Woodsong's Old Time Radio Hour. This program has been broadcast live for many years, and it was an honor to be a part of it! You can see my appearances - but I encourage you to watch more of the many available editions on Woodsongs.com, and/or tune in live on YouTube or the radio most Monday nights. It's a great program that highlights folk musicians in all stages of their careers, well worth your time!