Hello, My name is Cullen I'm 18 years old! This is an arrangement that I'm very proud of based around an old Scottish traditional tune called Gloomy Winter's Noo Awa'. I first heard it off the CD 'Highlander's Farewell' performed by Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas. Shortly after quarantine started in 2020, I decided for the first time to take an old Scottish tune like this one, and turn it into a fully arranged string quartet piece, and I've learned so much through the process about composing! This project was deeply inspired by The Danish String Quartet and how they take traditional melodies and turn them into beautiful arrangments! All instrumental playing, mixing, and production was done by Cullen luper using Ableton Live.

My goal is to become a professional musician, and this scholarship would enable me to attend a music conservatory that would further my development as a musician and prepare me for a career in that field. For most of my life, I have played music and worked at learning and discovering new styles, ideas, and communities within music. I began gigging at age eleven, playing Celtic music on many instruments with my brother and dipping my toes in the water of the life of a performing musician. Since then, I have been gigging more frequently with professional musicians that come to the Bay Area from around the world. In 2019, I was picked up by the Hot Club Of San Francisco on violin and piano and started playing weekly gigs at jazz clubs with them in San Francisco. It is my goal to continue to improve my skills as a performer, in order to build a future career in which performing plays a central part. Since the pandemic started, due to a shortage of gigs, I have started to teach myself recording and producing music via Ableton Live, take college classes in Pro Tools at City College Of San Francisco, and put together online events, collaborations, and shows. During this time I have been recording string arrangements in styles including Bach, pop, jazz, contemporary European traditional, playing all of the instruments myself, and making multiscreen videos to be posted on social media. Through creating and recording these projects, as well as making lofi and experimenting with EDM, I’ve been very inspired to write more music, and have made it my goal to learn to compose and produce music at a higher level. My vision of my future as a musician and artist encompasses a combination of performing music in the different styles that I have grown to enjoy, as well as expressing myself through composing and producing cinematic string pieces, commercial pop music, atmospheric electronic music, and jazz. I want to discover how to blend those genres into something new and exciting. I also see myself composing soundtracks for games, TV shows, and movies. No matter what, I know that my purpose in life is to make music that has meaning, not just to myself, but to others as well.