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News > Pre-teen professional, Harriet Langley, 12, to perform with Reno Philharmonic
Pre-teen professional, Harriet Langley, 12, to perform with Reno Philharmonic January 20, 2006 Like any other 12-year-old, Harriet Langley likes to read and hang out with friends. But when she isn't going to school or thumbing through a good book, she's probably playing the violin. And playing it well. Langley has been studying music since she was 4. On Sunday she'll make her professional debut, performing Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Reno Philharmonic. "I'm so excited," she said. "I don't really get nervous for performances. I just get really excited, which probably comes down to the same thing. But I try to look at it as being excited rather than nervous." Langley may be 12, but she speaks with the confidence and vocabulary of a person twice her age. She was born in Australia, and she moved with her family to Korea and Japan before settling in New York in 2001. Today, she studies with Patinka Kopec at the Manhattan School of Music. Langley said she decided to play the Bruch concerto for her professional debut with the help of Kopec and Philharmonic conductor Barry Jekowsky. "It was a little bit difficult to try and get the whole piece together and be in time and everything, but it was a wonderful experience," she said. "It's actually one of my favorite pieces in the whole violin repertoire, because all three movements are kind of contrasting, and I find that there's so much to it. There's so much you can do with phrasing and colors and depth." Jekowsky auditions young performers several times a year in hopes of discovering people he believes deserve recognition. He said Langley auditioned for him twice, beginning when she was just 10, and he's kept track of her. "I followed her development, and I've been very impressed by her," he said. "I thought it would be great to give her a professional debut, and this is going to be it." The Bruch concerto doesn't present many technical challenges, she said, but musically it's an eye-opener. "Every year I play this piece and all the time it's so different," she said. "My teacher and I, we keep on discovering new things we can do with the piece, new things I like." Langley's set on a career as a professional soloist, she said, but not long ago she was a reluctant student. "I started violin totally by accident," she said. "When I was 4 years old, my parents had a close family friend who wanted to start teaching violin to little kids, so that's how I started. But I had no interest in music or no interest in violin." Her parents kept after her to practice, and today she's glad. "I started becoming serious, really, around the age of 8," she said. "I started getting better and I think that because my parents kept on pushing me, it started becoming a really big part of my life and I started really loving it." Langley also likes to sing and play piano, but most of her practice time is dedicated to her primary instrument. "I try and get in around three to four hours during the week and four to five hours in the weekend," she said. Despite the pressures of school and her budding career, Langley said she still finds time to be a kid. "Surprisingly, I find time to do the things that I enjoy, like spend time with my friends and read and sometimes go to the movies," she said. "But it does become pretty hectic." |
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