Viviana Acosta, Second Violin
After a disastrous attempt at learning piano at age 4 which ended in tears, my father said to me at age 7, "Pick an instrument." I remember watching Sesame Street at the time and Sarah Chang was playing her little prodigy heart out during a commercial break. I thought, she's my age and it looks easy. Avoiding another argument about my then proven musical inability, I responded, "Violin." The very next day with my rented 1/4 size violin, I arrived at Settlement Music School in Jenkintown, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia. After a few years of being relegated to the garage behind soundproof walls, my squeaky bowings eventually turned into palatable musical tones. Still, I hated individual recitals and nearly gave up playing because of my petrifying stage fright as a soloist. Thankfully, I learned to love the violin when I joined my first chamber group and discovered the beauty in group melodies. Two years later, I joined my first orchestra.
Since then, I continued playing throughout high school and at the University of Pennsylvania in various orchestral and chamber groups. I was lucky enough to receive instruction by Ghislaine Fleshman, a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra. After college, I played in the Mainline Symphony Orchestra before moving from Philadelphia to the Columbia area and joined the Columbia Orchestra in 2009.
I am grateful for the opportunities a musical education provided me and believe music was a key factor in keeping me from falling into the pitfalls of an urban environment as an adolescent.
