When I received the call about receiving the Avery Fisher Career Grant this year, I was just blown away and so excited for the possibilities of what this means for me and my career.

My early interest in music stems from my mother.

She loves listening to music, loves dancing as well.

And she loves Bach just as much as she loves listening to George Clinton in the Parliament Funkadelic and Patrice Rushen and other incredible R&B soul artists.

And that always meant something to me.

She began my siblings and I on piano, and when I was four years old, I remember seeing my sister, who had also taken up the violin, practicing just in the living room.

And I just thought to myself, like, Wow, this that's the most amazing sound I've ever heard.

I want to play something like that.

And I think I was pretty jealous of her.

So I begged my mom to to also introduce me to violin.

You know, music lessons, music theory, etc.

are all very expensive.

And had it not been for this string training program that my mom found in Boston called Project Step I simply wouldn't be here today.

Project Step is an incredible organization that was founded 40 years ago, and it supports Black and Latino students in learning classical string instruments.

♪♪ In terms of other teachers and just people that have inspired me so much in my journey, I have to talk about my hig school teacher, James Buswell.

The late James Buswell, an incredible musician, thinker, person.

He was a student of Ivan Galamian.

And I just remember leaving every single lesson so grateful for everything that he'd given me.

He would offer me extra time when it wasn't asked for, he just gave it to me.

There were times where he'd be talking and going on a tangent and I would be like, Okay, where's he going with this?

But somehow he always turned every technical comment or musical comment into kind of a life lesson.

And I really missed tha and appreciated that about him.

♪♪ Just before I was born, the Sphinx Organization came to be with the amazing vision of Afa and Aaron Dworkin, and this incredible organization helps to support diversity, equity and inclusion in the arts.

That was my cannonball into the organization in terms of having won the first prize, the Robert F Smith Prize, as well as audience choice.

And aside from those incredible prizes, which I'm so honored to have received, just having been a part of that conference and sharing the stage with so many colleagues and friends and even teachers actually from my childhood, was a dream come true.

♪♪ The work I'm performing is the first movement from Ravel's second sonata in G Major.

I love the interplay between the violin and piano in this piece, and that was actually very purposeful for Ravel.

He wanted to highlight sort of the differences between the two instruments.

He wrote this piece between 1923 and 1927, and he'd become fascinated with the African-American art forms of blues and jazz.

In fact, right here in New York City, he spent time at the Cotton Club in Harlem and got to see some of the greats like Duke Ellington perform.

And it's just wonderful to see that inspiration on his music.

But of course, in the Ravel, French way.

In Ravel's Second Sonata in G Major, the first movement begins with this free flowing improvisational feel in the piano.

It's then introducing the violin's voice, and they sort of feed off of each other.

Ravel inputs some very percussive moments in both instruments that contrast with this very flowing melody, sort of in the beginning of this piece of the movement.

And he reaches a climax after developing upon this theme and the end is sort of this moment where the violin is stuck between two note, two notes, an E and an F, and she's or I guess me, that would be me, is not really sure where to go.

And by the end, she's reached this moment of purity and clarity.

♪♪ I'm looking forward to using these funds to help support perhaps getting a bow.

I know that that's something I absolutely need.

I also come from a background of working with many organizations that support students like me, young Black and Latino musicians, and I don't quite have the specifics for it, but I would love to have a similar project of my own to give back to communities that have given me so much.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪