Assignment 21 - Jimmy Chen

 Freshman year I applied to two music summer programs, one was with the Colburn Conservatory of Music and the other one was with the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. The application and audition process was very hard and had multiple rounds. They both started with weeder rounds of video auditions, which wasn’t too hard. Then they got to live auditions which were over skype and those were more stressful. But the Colburn Conservatory of Music had a third round of auditions with a panel of 3 judges, which was extremely stressful. I was extremely surprised that I had made it to the third round but sadly I was waitlisted at that point. The studio teacher that I had wanted did not want me. I tried to hopefully wait out the waitlist, but I had already been accepted into the summer program at Oberlin and I decided to go there instead. I ended up getting over the probable rejection and attended the summer program at Oberlin. I had a great experience there. We spent two great weeks there and I had a lot of fun. Then we took a bus to Chicago and spent a really great third week there. They gave us metro cards and we could roam the city freely as long as we got back before the 11pm curfew, of course. We performed with the chicago symphony orchestra and got lessons with the members. We also had the opportunity to perform with Rachel Barton Pine who has a 20 million dollar Guarneri Violin. Of course the Colburn Conservatory program did get to play in Walt Disney Hall, but you shouldn’t dwell on what could’ve been and instead be happy with what you have.