The impact of the viola

Ever since he can remember, music has always been a constant factor in senior Ben Graham’s life. From playing on his toy piano at the ripe age of three, to becoming an All-State violist for four consecutive years, Graham has always had an intense passion for the performing arts. 

Though the wide variety of his extracurriculars can be draining, Graham’s devotion to the arts quickly blossomed into a love for the community that comes along with it.  Graham has learned how to be a better collaborator because of this.

“I’d say it’s gotten me a lot more used to working with other people and being open to other people’s ideas,” Graham said. “Especially with a piece of music, you can have a lot of different interpretations of that, and just being open to the other ideas that people have about the piece and being willing to kind of change what you’re doing.” 

With his love of music, Graham decided to broaden his horizons. He discovered his adoration for musical theater and tried out for the fall musical his junior year, ultimately scoring a main role in “Beauty and the Beast,” as Lumiere, the talking candlestick. 

“I got into musical theater because a lot of people that were in the choir also did a lot of those musical theater productions,” Graham said. “I just auditioned for one of the shows one year and ended up getting one of the lead roles.”

While Graham’s accomplishments are excellent, he has so much ahead of him. He plans on pursuing a professional musical career after high school and is taking a double major in viola performance. Since his future is becoming a reality in only three months, Graham feels as if he has accomplished so much, but also feels he has missed out on great opportunities.

 “I would just say take all of the opportunities that you have because there’s so many things that I’ve had the opportunity to do and then I’ve turned it down,” Graham said. “I’ve regretted doing that, so I think it’s just kind of fun to do as much stuff as you can, as long as you like doing all that stuff. I found a lot of that with music.”