Muirlands student plays Carnegie Hall in solo violin performance

Muirlands Middle School student Carly Tse-Sabella and her family were on their way to Carnegie Hall on Dec. 20 when their taxi took 30 minutes to travel just 10 blocks. Suddenly in a time crunch, they had to hail a pedicab to make it the rest of the way.

Carly, wearing her recital dress and heels in the frigid New York City night, got there two minutes after her scheduled arrival time for the biggest performance of her life so far. She was listed as the third violin soloist to play at the legendary concert venue’s Weill Recital Hall.

Carly had been awarded honorable mention in the spring American Protégé International Music Talent Competition and was invited to play in a recital program at Carnegie.

The competition was open to instrumentalists, vocalists and groups of all nationalities. The spring contest included musicians from 17 countries.

Carly’s initial reaction to being invited to play at Carnegie was excitement followed by nervousness.

“I also realized that I had to start memorizing my song, so I was kind of freaked out,” she said with a laugh.

Her biggest show before that point was what she called a regular recital performance.

However, her emotions were quelled once she stepped onstage and played her one-minute piece.

“When I was waiting around, I was kind of sweating because it’s very grand there,” Carly recalled. “But when I walked up and started playing, I felt immersed in the music, so I kind of forgot about being scared.”

Away from the stage, Carly attends Muirlands in La Jolla and says water polo and ice skating are her favorite hobbies. She spent the past three years learning to play violin.

Carly said she was drawn to the sound of the instrument and how one can convey many different emotions with it. But she needed a boost of confidence.

“I kind of reached a lull at the beginning of last year because I was pretty bored and I wasn’t making that much progress,” Carly said. “But this year I made a lot of progress and took a big jump.”

Part of the turnaround was due to her private instructor, Daria Hodko, who encouraged her to sign up for the international music competition. Hodko, who runs Violinesse Violin Studio in La Jolla, also helped Carly select her piece, “40 Variations for Violin, No. 6” by composer Otakar Ševčík.

Four of Hodko’s students were given awards in the competition: Carly, violinist Anne Chen in third place and violinist Cecilia Riesland and vocalist Addie Bailey as honorable mentions.

Carly is “very, very enthusiastic, charismatic … and outgoing,” Hodko said. “She works hard [and] she’s very strong-willed, so there’s a goal she has to achieve. She’ll definitely put her all into it to ensure it happens, which is a really good quality to have as a performer.”

Carly’s mother, Dorothy Tse, was equally impressed by her hard work. She attended the Dec. 20 performance alongside Carly’s father, John, and younger sister, Lia.

“The piece she chose with her teacher is quite hard to memorize and there’s a lot of different parts that don’t come across as feeling very melodic,” Tse said.

“It was just incredibly surreal, [and we’re] proud of her. We were very excited and certainly nervous because it’s her first time onstage on such a platform like that. But she had been working for months for that night, and that night arrived.”

Once Carly got through the whirlwind of her performance, she was able to sit and enjoy the rest of the show. And afterward, she and her family opted for the subway over a taxi.

“I also like listening to other people play,” Carly said. “Now that I’ve been doing music for a little while — I also sing — when I listen to other singers sing and other violinists [play], I can hear … how much work and dedication they put into each song.

“Most people, if they weren’t musicians, would just think ‘That was a nice piece.’ But if you’re a musician, you can hear that’s actually pretty hard to do.”