I walked into my Varsity Drumline audition with sticks, nerves, and something nobody else had: an original piece I wrote myself. The piece is called “Containment,” and even though it is a drumline audition piece, it became way more personal than I expected. I did not just want to write something that sounded cool. I wanted to write something that felt honest. For me, that meant writing about my OCD, the way it grabs onto little thoughts and refuses to let go, and also about t

I created Pidgin, a four-person percussion ensemble, as the opening number for my high school band’s spring concert. I wanted the piece to represent the connections that music creates across different cultures and parts of the world, so I drew inspiration from Latin American music, Egyptian rhythms, American jazz, and African beats. I combined these influences into one piece, using different percussion instruments and rhythmic ideas to create a musical conversation between th