Music
The discipline that taught me how listen deeply, perform with intention, and turn structure into expression.
Three musical paths, one lifelong question — what makes structure feel meaningful — worked out in sound and interpretation before I ever worked it out in systems.
Conducting
In 2018, I began following one of the oldest dreams I had as a musician: to stand in front of a full orchestra and shape many voices into a cohesive whole.
That dream became real in spring 2020, when I made my conducting première with the Amherst Symphony Orchestra, leading Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54, with Faith Wen as soloist. To close my senior year by conducting the orchestra I had been part of for four years felt deeply personal — stepping into the music from the other side.
With the mentorship of Mark Swanson, the orchestra’s director, I learned not only to study a score and lead through gestures, but to rehearse a full group of musicians — to listen across sections, make decisions in real time, and guide a collective interpretation.
It remains one of the most complex musical achievements I have pursued, and one of the clearest reminders that you never stop learning how music works. In San Francisco, those skills continue to shape how I lead rehearsals for music groups today: with intention, knowledge, and musicality.
Piano
In 2015, with almost no experience, I decided to learn the piano — and devoted myself to it with an intensity that changed the course of my musical life.
During my four years at Amherst, I studied with Chonghyo Shin, built a technique I never thought I would reach, and performed my Senior Piano Recital in March 2020.
After college, piano stayed with me as a serious part of my musical life. I practice almost every day and have since performed three more piano recitals, with another planned for December 2026, featuring works by Mozart, Chopin, Haydn, and Scarlatti.
Piano also deepened my work as a conductor: learning to perform multiple voices at once, each with care and musical independence, changed the way I hear and shape an ensemble. It also taught me that patience and persistence are worth carrying into every area of life — because the results, when they finally arrive, are profoundly fulfilling.
Violin
My first musical language. I picked up the violin at three and have never really put it down.
It carried me from a church philharmonic in Natal at 10, to the conservatory at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in 2011, and later to the Amherst Symphony Orchestra. At Amherst, I played every semester throughout all my college years, led the second violin section, and joined a few chamber programs each season.
When I lived in Germany in 2017, I also brought the violin into a different musical space, performing pop music on violin and keyboard with a band I put together with other international students for university events.
In San Francisco, it continues through string quartets, music groups, recitals, and musical lounges — keeping chamber music present in my life in a more intimate, living way, while also making space for pop music and improvisation with friends. Music has become one of the ways I build community here.
- Age 3First lessonsNatal, Brazil
- Age 10Genesis Philharmonic OrchestraNatal, Brazil
- 2011Conservatory lessonsProf. Ronedilk Dantas
- 2015Amherst Symphony OrchestraPrincipal 2nd Violin
- 2017Pop violin & keyboardInternational student band, Germany
- 2025—String quartets & recitalsSan Francisco