Gaetana Martin has played the violin every single day for the past 10 years.
The 16-year-old said the streak began when her first private teacher challenged her to play for 100 days in a row. Martin, who was 6 years old at the time, said she hadn’t “won a single thing” at that point in her life.
“And I thought, ‘Well, that means I have to win this,’ “ she said with a chuckle. Sitting at her family’s dining table in their Keene home, Martin gestured to the small star-shaped trophy sitting on a black side table.
“And I did. I haven’t stopped since.”
The Keene High School sophomore has, in a way, not missed a single beat. The next movement in Martin’s life symphony? She was recently accepted into the High School Honors Performance Series, an international program that will send her to New York City in February to play as part of a student symphony orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
The teen is humble about her accomplishments. Rather, she is eager to dive into conversations about how music makes her feel.
“[Playing the violin] is a therapy of sorts for me,” Martin said. Her parents put her in violin lessons as a child, she said, because she “had to learn that not being perfect is OK.
“… Any feedback from my teacher used to bring me to tears,” she said. “ [Playing violin] definitely has built a lot of grit and resilience in me.”
Martin’s parents, Gina Pasquale and Christopher Martin, say that commitment to her craft has shone bright.
“It’s been crazy cool to see how her musicality has grown,” her dad said. ”It’s been really inspiring.”
“I just want her to be fully and authentically herself,” Pasquale said. “And playing the violin has helped her build community too.”
Martin noted she had to travel to Massachusetts when she was younger for performance opportunities outside of her school ensembles, but she recently became a member of the Keene State College Orchestra and Keene Chamber Orchestra.
She also goes to the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music in Nelson each summer, an experience she said has given her the opportunity to play alongside musicians from around the world.
“I’ve met some of the best people, including my best friend, through music,” Martin said. “It’s so connective. And in every ensemble and audition experience I’ve had so far, everyone is rooting for you.”
The people she has met through music have had a deep impact on her perspective on life. She fondly recollected the support of Don Baldini, a beloved music teacher and figure in the local jazz community, as crucial to her early music career. Baldini died in March after a roughly eight-year battle with cancer.
“Baldini worked with me to find a spot in his ensembles when I was pretty young,” she said. “My feet didn’t even touch the ground when he welcomed me into those spaces. He made me see music is more than notes on the page.”
The amount of music in the world is vast, Martin said, which makes it hard for her to name favorite pieces. However, she loves playing music from the Baroque era (1600-1750).
“The instrumentation and art from that time period really inspire me,” Martin said. She added that she also likes listening to other violinists, such as Hilary Hahn and Itzhak Pearlman.
Martin’s strings teacher at Keene High, Amanda Paul, nominated her for the Honors Performance Series. The program is meant to showcase the talents of the best high school musicians around the world, give them the opportunity to work with top-level conductors and perform at renowned venues.
As part of the program, Martin will spend five days in New York City to rehearse and sightsee, including attending a Broadway show and exploring historic landmarks.
Martin said the program audition, which consisted of sending audio files, was nerve-wracking at first. She was used to playing in person or sending videos for any virtual auditions.
“This was also a selective audition, not a placement audition,” Martin said. This meant that her audio files were the only thing standing between her and participating in the program, rather than auditioning to determine what role she’d have in an ensemble.
On the day she learned of her acceptance, Martin was rehearsing a piece by the German composer Felix Mendelssohn with the Keene State College Orchestra. Martin described Mendelssohn’s music as “soaring yet graceful,” which helped put her in good spirits upon getting into the car after rehearsal.
“I saw both my parents sitting in the front, and I thought, ‘Huh, usually just one of them picks me up, that’s weird,’” Martin said. “We chatted, and then we sat in a bit of an awkward silence, then they both turned around and my mom handed me the email printout.”
Pasquale said she was proud of her daughter, regardless of the result of the audition.
“It felt so cool to see that she was putting herself out there,” she said. “I knew no matter what that she’d grow and learn from the experience.”
While Martin said music is a core part of her life, she has no desire to major in it when she goes to college. She said she’ll consider schools with strong music programs, but she’s interested in studying physics and mathematics.
“I worry that having a career in music will suck the joy out of it,” she said. “This brings me so much happiness right now, why would I risk sacrificing that?”
She also enjoys reading in her spare time, and is an active participant in the Keene High Interact club. Sponsored by the Keene Rotary Club, Interact students work on community service projects and raise funds to support local, regional and international humanitarian aid.
Martin’s parents said she has always marched to the beat of her own drum.
“She’s become a kind and caring person in a world where it feels like we don’t have as many,” Pasquale said. “She’s such a cool kid.”
James Rinker can be reached at 603-355-8569, or jrinker@keenesentinel.com.
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