Lane’s Sinfonietta Concertmaster, Alexandra Kwasny, Div. 560, has recently earned the Assistant Concertmaster position of the Illinois Music Education Association (IMEA) All-State Orchestra. This means that she is the second-best violinist in the state of Illinois, and she has the second most important position in the orchestra. This orchestra consists of the top musicians in the state. These musicians all play professional-level music.

   Kwasny has been playing the violin for the past 12 years.

   “When I was younger I used to watch all the TV shows with different violinists and orchestras,” Kwasny said. “And for some reason I was always captivated by the violin and I just always paid attention to the violin. So that’s why I chose the violin out of all the instruments.”

   Kwasny said that it had been her choice to start playing the violin, and her parents just encouraged her. Kwasny’s parents at first just wanted her to play the piano but Kwasny was attracted to the violin instead and started lessons with it.

   “I started out renting a violin, but after a couple years I really thought that this is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life,” Kwasny said. “So I transitioned into [getting] my own.”

   A high quality violin can range from $5,000 to millions of dollars.

   “My parents were kind enough to help me pay for my violin,” Kwasny said. “It’s a lot of money but they believe in me and they feel like this is worth it.”

   She has two violin teachers, one that she has been with since she started playing and the other she started with about a year ago. She introduced a new teacher because she likes to keep an open mind and have different opinions.

   Besides having the honor of being the Assistant Concertmaster, Kwasny has also performed in over 500 concerts, weddings, tea gatherings as well as participated in contests and competitions, including some Polish competitions.

   “I am the Concertmaster Protege for Philharmonic Orchestra, which is probably the biggest [performance I’ve had] of all of them,” Kwasny said. “We play really hard pieces so that’s probably the biggest [performance] I had.”

   One competition took her to Australia where she was part of an orchestra competition and played at the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Parliament of Australia in Canberra, Our Lady of Czestochowa Queen of Poland Catholic Church in Marayong and the Kosciusko Mountain Site in Jindabyne.

   “It wasn’t necessarily a competition but we played for different people,” Kwasny said. “We were invited there so it was an awesome journey.”

   Besides all her honors and awards, Kwasny still has to do college auditions and applications. She is still in the process of auditioning; she plans to audition for DePaul and Lawrence University as well as two universities in Warsaw and Krakow in Poland. Kwasny plans on majoring in Music Performance for the Violin.

   Kwasny is Polish and grew up with in a household with rich Polish culture.

   “I love playing classical music but I’m also part of this Polish Folk Dance Group where I play Polish traditional songs,” Kwasny said. “That’s how I was raised and I want to keep that tradition in my family.”

   Her mom and dad are both musicians; her mom plays the accordion and her dad plays the piano, trumpet and other woodwinds. Her younger sister also plays the violin but Kwasny does not teach her sister.

   “She doesn’t really listen to me,” Kwasny said. “So we have a private teacher who has much more knowledge than me so she usually listens to the teacher. But she started playing because I started playing.”

    In school, Kwasny is the secretary of Tri-M Club (like Musical Honor Society) and is part of the Lane Tech Quintet, which plays outside of school for the board of education and other school related meetings. For the clubs, students are chosen by Mr. Flygt and the officers of Tri-M Club to be a part of Tri-M Club and Mrs. Morales for Lane Tech Quintet. Kwasny has also been in Honors Orchestra since her freshman year, she’s in Music Therapy and last year she took AP Music Theory. She mainly just focuses on her music though. She does not compose music.

   “I love to improvise when I get the chance to,” Kwasny said. “[Which] is when you get with a group of musicians and pick a random key and start playing different chords. It’s kind of like composing a song but you compose in the moment. Sometimes you get a great tune out of it.”

   Playing music is a way to escape for Kwasny.

   “Whenever I am going through a hard time or I am stressed out, I pick up my violin and forget everything; just focus on the music,” Kwasny said. “The violin represents who I am even though [it’s] just a wooden box with four strings; it is so complex and full of mysteries. It has changed my life in so many ways and made me the person I am today.”