Junior stuns crowd performing with Omaha Symphony

Carrying her cello across the brightly lit stage, junior, Anastasia Wilson felt the world on her shoulders. She was given the rare opportunity to be a featured soloist in the Omaha Symphony, which was performed at the Joselyn Art Museum on October 25, 2017. She played a piece of the Hungarian Rhapsody by David Popper she had previously been studying and working on in her solo repertoire and the Omaha Symphony played the complement part. For the past two years, she has spent countless hours perfecting the way her fingers effortless moved up and down the cello to create such beautiful tones. This time though, her experience was different because instead of the piano, it was an orchestra.

To date, this is the biggest thing Wilson has done in her career as a celloist. In the fourth grade at nine-years-old, Wilson joined a music club. She was the only celloist and _____, thus her career as a musician playing the cello truly began to flourish. That Wednesday was the first time Wilson had been completely solo. Up until now, Wilson has been playing in sections of the orchestra since age nine.

“I’d seen people do it in the past and I knew it was an opportunity there…” While Wilson has had the opportunity to perform with smaller orchestras, she knew solo opportunities with the Omaha symphony is a big deal and wanted to take advantage of that opportunity. “You get to work with high caliber musicians.” Wilson said. Performing at the Joselyn Museum in front of a crowd and with people who currently are in the profession she aspires to join; Wilson thinks it is important as a growing musician to get as many opportunities as she can, especially ones like this.

“[About performing] It is a really great way for me to convey all my emotions and I work really hard at it, so I get to put everything I have been working on into this performance and share it with people,” Wilson said. Despite the overwhelming fear of messing up to the point she could not recover that encompassed Wilson the day of her big solo and her slight stage fright, she survived all four performances. “If I mess up, then the orchestra of 40 some people do too,” Wilson said. By time the fourth performance took place, Wilson felt more relaxed, comfortable and had more fun with it. Understandably, her stage fright occurs when she is doing something new. The pressure is more intense as a soloist, but it is something she is trying to master as she plans to further her career. Beforehand, due to the few practices, Wilson knew everything would be okay, but the nervousness still stood.

A nerve-wracking aspect was Wilson playing amongst such talented individuals. “It was all these people who have gone to music colleges and they are the top musicians in the area and I’m like ‘all of you are judging me’ but they weren’t…They were all really happy about it.” The most anxious part of Wilson’s role in the symphony was the fact Central’s orchestra came and watched her play. “I knew that all my peers were going to be there and that was scary, but I was happy they were able to attend,” Wilson said.

Before, during and after her performance, Wilson just had to remind herself to breathe and focus on the music by not thinking about anything. “It felt really good to say, ‘hey, I did this’ after all that work and to see people enjoy just made me happy,” Wilson commented.

At such a young age, Wilson never thought she would have the experience of working with all the orchestra.

Without the help of her mentors, Wilson believes there would have been no way for her to be completely ready for this symphony. So, she credits her mentors, teachers and parts of herself as huge roles in her development of the cello as the years have gone by.

In the meantime, Wilson will play more solo acts as the year comes to a close and as she plans for her senior year.