PLAYING AT
HEART
STRINGS Prodigies are rare to come across. But at just 15, former West student Katya Moeller has already won international competitions and performs all across the world with her violin at her side.
BY JENNA WANG
T
he instant the bow makes its final arc across the violin, roaring applause and a standing ovation thunders the stage. Whether in a retirement home or a stage in Italy, this is the life of Katya Moeller ’22, a young professional violinist. Making the decision to take online courses this year and leave West, she has since replaced textbooks with concerts and competitions on a global scale. It all began when Moeller started out at the Preucil School of Music with a starter cardboard box violin. She quickly flew through her training books until she finished them all, moving on to harder repertoire. From then on, she began to perform and compete around her community, garnering her reputation as a child prodigy. Her first big opportunity came when William Jones, former conductor of the University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra, invited her to perform as a soloist for her orchestral debut. “It was amazing,” Moeller said. “It’s humbling to stand in front of a bunch of people who are willing to play with you.” Jones, who has watched Moeller develop as a violinist since she started, vividly recalls the performance. “She had her piece flawlessly memorized, and her performance was excellent. The orchestra players were impressed,” Jones said. Even as Moeller’s career began to take off, however, she didn’t always love the violin wholeheartedly. “I didn’t really like the violin until a couple years ago. I just didn’t want to practice. I didn’t like playing because my mom wanted me to,” Moeller said. The wake-up call wouldn’t fully hit her until she participated in the Bowdoin International
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PROFILE OCT. 3, 2019
Music Festival in Maine. “I used to think 'It’s okay, I can miss a couple notes. I don’t really care.' [The festival] was the first time I really got exposed to people who were really intensely pursuing their instrument ... so [seeing] that really motivated me,” Moeller said. With a determined mindset, she grew to love the violin and to intensely pursue an education beyond local offerings. After receiving a scholarship to the prestigious academy at the Music Institute of Chicago in 2018, she would travel to Chicago every weekend to study with 30 other students and her world-renowned teacher, Almita Vamos, before returning back to Iowa for school. At the start of the 2019-20 school year, Moeller had planned to attend West High. However, from interacting with academy friends and dedicating herself to her soloist career over time, she made the momentous decision to drop out of public high school and enroll in online schooling after careful consideration.
“I kind of only went to school for socializing and I started this year thinking that I’m only going to take easy classes. Then I realized I went to school to see my friends and all my friends were taking AP classes. I wouldn’t be with them anyway,” Moeller said. “I wanted enough time to practice. I think you could get so much more accomplished if you just do it yourself with a computer so you don‘t have to spend seven hours a day in school.” Moeller further justified her decision by establishing her goals and the time that she needs to invest in them. “At the academy, everyone’s a musician so you can relate. I feel like you go to school and people don’t really understand what you do, taking it for granted that it takes hours. There’s so many times where I’ve had to say to friends, 'No, I can’t go to Pancheros cause I have to practice,'” Moeller said. “I don’t really mind because that’s my future. Everyone at the academy’s experienced the same thing. I kind of figured out that you know what — high school isn’t really the most import-