On my first semester at Chapman University I’ve performed with the orchestra as a harpist. This rewarding experience was performed on the 24th of October, 2025. The concert’s full name is “Star Wars: A New Hope.”

My audition process started during the summer. I saw the post about this opportunity on the school’s Instagram account, and commented to ask if harpists can join. They replied with “yes.” This excited me, so I sent an email to the music heads at school, including the conductor Danko Drusko. We had a long chain of emails, emailing back and forth about how I can audition. Since this was during the summer and we were traveling, I did not have my harp with me. But, we went to San Francisco which is where I had my first harp lessons when I was four and a half. Thankfully, my first harp teacher, miss Lynn, still lives in San Francisco, so I reached out to her after all these years to ask if I can have lessons from her again to practice for the audition.

But, my time was limited in San Francisco, and I could only practice on miss Lynn’s harp for four hours. As a music person, you know this much time to master a piece of music for an audition or whatnot, is not realistic. So, what I did was with the help of my childhood teacher, I played the music in slower tempo than what was asked. Even though my audition wasn’t perfect, this helped me be concise. The person I sent my audition to was understanding to the fact that I didn’t have enough time to prepare a better audition. The fact that I play the harp also made it easier for me to get in, since there aren’t many harpists and they are needed.

I am experienced in solo playing. It brought me some challenges to play in an orchestra. I worked with experienced harpist Emmanuel Ceysson and he taught me a lesson I never forget. In an orchestra, you work to sound good as a whole group. Not how only on how you as a musician sound, because not every single note you play is often heard. So Ceysson and I removed some parts of the sheet music so that I can focus on the more significant parts, and help me practice more parts in a shorter time.