For as long as I can remember, I have always been singing. Whether it was The Little Mermaid, Hannah Montana, or Taylor Swift, there was always a song to sing. I started taking voice lessons at 9 years old. When I was 10 years old, I was in a children's community choir at the Hartt School of Music. A group of singers in this group was invited to sing in the children's choir in a local production of Puccini's La Boheme. It was through this experience that I fell in love with opera. Now, as a senior in high school, I intend to major in Vocal Performance at a top music school. I am still trying to make a decision, but my top choice is the USC Thornton School of Music. I am one of the 10 vocalists accepted and hope to go there. However, coming from a working-class family of parents who work multiple jobs to afford costs for my two siblings and me, the cost of attending a university of this prestige is unfathomable for us. With this scholarship, I can put the money towards paying tuition or purchasing course materials. Receiving this scholarship is important for me for reasons besides the ways the money allows me to enable further access to higher education; this scholarship honours Nicholas J. Fillmore because of his qualities of discipline, loyalty, resilience, and leadership. I believe that all of these qualities are things I embody and qualities I can bring with me into my future endeavours to honour his legacy. Being an artist, especially a classical musician, requires constant discipline and resilience. There are many days I have spent practising in which I could've given up, but I chose not to out of true love and determination for what I do. I also embody loyalty because I have stayed so loyal to something I am so passionate about, and this has led me to find strong relationships with other musicians. Finally, I embody leadership because I consider an important part of being a leader to be a desire to help others. I have found many ways to help others in my community, such as participating in a Peer Leadership group designed to help new students and freshmen in the school and participating in the school Pride Alliance as a social media manager, where I held spread advocacy for the community. Additionally, I work as a cantor at two Catholic churches in two different towns in Connecticut: Wallingford and Hamden. Through this job, I lead an entire congregation with what I believe to be the most powerful tool, music, while doing what I love to do: sing. I know that this scholarship is also designed for students seeking a better life. I am not just seeking a better life by pursuing rigorous music schools to further my career. I am also determined to rise above the challenges I have faced in my life. Throughout most of my high school career, I was bullied by many of my peers. I spent most of my time alone as I was mocked, laughed at, and judged. This was because choosing to pursue music and choosing to sing and be passionate about it was not always popular amongst all of my peers. Despite this, I am seeking a better life by going to music school and finding my place where I can meet my people and pursue my passions without having to go to school in fear ever again. I want to find my corner of the sky, and I can do that with assistance.

Growing up, I always wanted to be de-greenified. When I was 10 years old, I saw the musical Wicked for the first time. While watching this performance, I immediately fell in love with the main character, Elphaba Thropp (also known as the Wicked Witch of the West). I related to Elphaba on a deep level, but I wasn't quite sure why. The reasoning for this would only become more apparent as I got older. For as long as I can remember, I have been singing. Whether it was The Little Mermaid, Hannah Montana, or Taylor Swift, I was always singing something. Because of this, I started taking voice lessons when I was 9. When I was 10 years old, I was in a community childrens' choir at the Hartt School of Music. A group of children in this group, including myself, were invited to sing in the children's chorus of a local production of Puccini's La Boheme. This is when I fell in love with opera. After this experience, I decided to take singing more seriously, something that was not very popular. Throughout my academic career, I have faced negativity from my peers for choosing to pursue a career that is not very popular. This got worse and worse as I progressed into elementary school, then middle school, then high school. I moved to a new high school in search of new musical opportunities outside of the opportunities offered in my hometown. While people had not always been kind to me, this was the first time I truly understood what it means to be bullied. At this new school, I was mocked, insulted, embarrassed, and degraded by many of my classmates. This was very upsetting for me. It was also during my junior year of high school that I was reunited with Wicked when the first movie was released. To say that tears were shed would be an understatement; I cried for the whole duration of the movie. It is through my reconnection with this material that I found myself in Elphaba Thropp. It is through this story that I had this epiphany: because of the way I have been treated, I have always wanted to be something different from who I am to assimilate to others around me. It is through reconnecting with Elphaba's story that I realized I have nothing to hide. I am unique. I am different. I am allowed to exist and exist to the fullest capacity. For the first time in my life, I realized that I am allowed to take up space. Specifically, it is when Elphaba sings "Defying Gravity" that this feeling was awoken in me. In this song, Elphaba owns her autonomy and has decided she is no longer willing to tolerate mistreatment from others. At the time I was hearing this song, I was at a similar point in my high school career. I was tired of accepting mistreatment from others. It is through Wicked that I learned to stick up for myself. (You can say that I truly held space for "Defying Gravity", as the meme goes.) This video is from this past Halloween during my senior year. I have now learned that I matter. Not only can I take up space, but I can also "defy gravity" (as the song says). With this work, I am trying to achieve an expression of my internal power and strength. I am expressing something that has been suppressed for too long. It's not easy being green, but it is who I am, not who everyone else wants me to be.

I am a classical musician, but I like my musicals. In the musical Dear Evan Hansen, the titular character sings a song called "You Will Be Found", saying, "Even when the dark comes crashing through/When you need a friend to carry you/When you're broken on the ground/You will be found". I would like to think that music has found me throughout high school. I started high school at a new school after going to school in the Wallingford Public School system my whole life. I chose to attend this new school because of the new musical opportunities it presented in comparison to the local high school. This meant leaving all of my friends, no longer going to school with my twin brother, and leaving a town I had grown up in my whole life and had learned to love. I found clarity in music. For as long as I can remember, I have been singing. I started taking lessons when I was 9. When I was 10 years old, I was in a community chorus at the Hartt School of Music. Certain members of this chorus were invited to sing in the childrens' chorus of a local production of Puccini's La Boheme. It was through this experience that I fell in love with opera. While I have continued to sing things in all kinds of genres, such as musical theatre and pop music, classical music has become the love of my life. And it is because I love what I do so much, making music, that I have chosen to stay strong and defy the negative feedback I received from my peers about my passion for music. However, I was still able to make friends and left middle school with a tight group of real friends that eventually fell apart as I went to this new high school. It was in high school that I endured the most harassment I have ever had to face in my life. Throughout high school, I have been bullied by all kinds of people: people I didn't know very well, people who pretended to be my friends, then suddenly turned on me, and people who have targeted me since day one. There was only one way for me to get through this: to get up every day and continue to do what I love doing: making music. It was in my school choral and orchestral ensembles that I found a soft place to land in pursuing what I love. But this would also change for me by my junior year. As a serious musician, I live to be challenged. By my junior year, I decided I needed to be further challenged in my voice lessons and chose to leave my voice teacher, the choir teacher's girlfriend. It was through this that he retaliated, and it was revealed to me that I was emotionally abused by this man for three years. I belive that as artists we have a responsibility to lift up other artists and it was through this experience that I got to see that my accomplishments were always minimized, my problems always dismissed (including the issue of the girls in choir bullying me) and my existence as an individual always forced into the expectations of this person who was very intentionally never, never impressed. This may all sound very dramatic and very "pick-me girl-core," but that is not what this is. I am not looking for sympathy, for it is through music that I was able to find myself again, through all of the turmoil of my high school career.

People often ask me when I started singing, but I believe this is the wrong question. I believe the real question is when I was not singing. For as long as I can remember, I have always been singing and have always had music in my soul. From The Little Mermaid to Taylor Swift to Hannah Montana, there was always a song, and I was always singing it. When I was eight years old, I performed in my school's talent show for the first time. The theme was the 70's, and I sang Sunshine On My Shoulders by John Denver. After that, I started taking voice lessons at about nine years old and began participating in various local musical theatre productions. When I was 10 years old, I was in a children's choir affiliated with the Hartt School of Music. A group of participants was asked to sing in the children's chorus of a local production of Puccini's La Boheme. (Mind you, I had never seen or listened to an opera before this experience.) For the first few weeks of rehearsal, I enjoyed the singing but didn't really understand what I was doing or why I was doing it. It was not until we started rehearsing with the cast of opera singers for dress rehearsals. It was then that I fell in love with opera and all things classical music. In fact, I can tell you the specific point at which I fell in love: when Musetta opened her mouth to sing Quando m'en vo. Once I heard her sing this aria, I wanted to be Musetta. I wanted to hit high B's. I wanted to wear fancy dresses. I wanted to call Marcelo a house painter. It was when I found opera that I found my purpose. Don't get me wrong, I still love to sing musical theatre and pop music, and I find myself in these genres as well. All kinds of singing allow me to explore all facets of myself as well as all the facets of humanity, but I am most at home in this world when I am singing an art song or an aria. This brings me to where I am today: in the middle of an intense pursuit of admittance into an undergraduate vocal performance program. Because of the love I have for music, I have decided I want to pursue it as a career. Some days, I would say this love I have for music is stronger than any other love of my life; I jokingly refer to classical music as the love of my life. With this love comes great sacrifice, and I have sacrificed much for the love of my art. I have chosen not to be the most popular or the girl with the most friends because I have chosen my career path in spite of the bullying and backlash I have received from it by my peers. It is because I truly and unconditionally love what I do that I will go to bat for it endlessly, and it is because of this that music has made me a stronger person. As I step into the future, I hope to find my place with "my people" at any prestigious top-ranking music school or conservatory, entirely dependent on my ability to afford it. I hope to pursue a degree in vocal performance and eventually have a career in opera. I don't mean to sound like I am "not like other girls"; I am truly just seeking my "corner of the sky", which I have found in music.

People often ask me when I started singing, but I believe this is the wrong question. I believe the real question is when I was not singing. For as long as I can remember, I have always been singing and have always had music in my soul. From The Little Mermaid to Taylor Swift to Hannah Montana, there was always a song, and I was always singing it. When I was eight years old, I performed in my school's talent show for the first time. The theme was the 70's, and I sang Sunshine On My Shoulders by John Denver. After that, I started taking voice lessons at about nine years old and began participating in various local musical theatre productions. When I was 10 years old, I was in a children's choir affiliated with the Hartt School of Music. A group of participants was asked to sing in the children's chorus of a local production of Puccini's La Boheme. (Mind you, I had never seen or listened to an opera before this experience.) For the first few weeks of rehearsal, I enjoyed the singing but didn't really understand what I was doing or why I was doing it. It was not until we started rehearsing with the cast of opera singers for dress rehearsals. It was then that I fell in love with opera and all things classical music. In fact, I can tell you the specific point at which I fell in love: when Musetta opened her mouth to sing Quando m'en vo. Once I heard her sing this aria, I wanted to be Musetta. I wanted to hit high B's. I wanted to wear fancy dresses. I wanted to call Marcelo a house painter. It was when I found opera that I found my purpose. Don't get me wrong, I still love to sing musical theatre and pop music, and I find myself in these genres as well. All kinds of singing allow me to explore all facets of myself as well as all the facets of humanity, but I am most at home in this world when I am singing an art song or an aria. This brings me to where I am today: in the middle of an intense pursuit of admittance into an undergraduate vocal performance program. Because of the love I have for music, I have decided I want to pursue it as a career. Some days, I would say this love I have for music is stronger than any other love of my life; I jokingly refer to classical music as the love of my life. With this love comes great sacrifice, and I have sacrificed much for the love of my art. I have chosen not to be the most popular or the girl with the most friends because I have chosen my career path in spite of the bullying and backlash I have received from it by my peers. It is because I truly and unconditionally love what I do that I will go to bat for it endlessly, and it is because of this that music has made me a stronger person. As I step into the future, I hope to find my place with "my people" at any prestigious top-ranking music school or conservatory, entirely dependent on my ability to afford it. I hope to pursue a degree in vocal performance and eventually have a career in opera. I don't mean to sound like I am "not like other girls"; I am truly just seeking my "corner of the sky", which I have found in music.