Since January 8th I’ve been reliving adolescence. Hopefully in a good way: I started a job as a Teaching Fellow, training to become a full-time Biology teacher.

The view from my office window in the morning

Working for someone else 40 hours a week, every day M-F, has required some adjustment after 6 years of part-time work. And getting up before the sun has never been my favorite thing, neither as a teen nor as an adult. But there’s another way in which I’ve been revisiting my teenage self: with my violin, the most reliable time machine yet invented.

The author as a middle school violinist

Last fall was a whirlwind of music. I played in 3 different orchestras, and I played some of the most difficult repertoire I have yet attempted. I played in San Francisco with professionals! I had solos! It was exhilarating . …

Picture from Wiki

A recent discovery I made last year (about eight years late) that has got me completely enthralled, is of the prodigy Alma Deutscher. Have you come across her? Born 2005, and now a concert pianist and violinist and a composer of symphonies, an opera, and a number of other works. She learnt to play the piano at two, the violin at three, and began her fame when discovered by Stephen Fry, a friend of her father’s, when she was seven.

She was soon hailed as a second Mozart, but this makes her slightly indignant. She is, she always insists, the first Alma!

I love her music, and also her philosophy which is, when people ask when her music is going to get ‘serious’ and reflect the ugly side of life, that if she wants ugly she can watch the news, but for beauty she goes to…