Pre-College Students Reflect: Choi, Hirschfeld, and Batchu

Pre-College Students Look Back on a Truly Magical Year

We asked students—some graduating, some staying on—to write about the 2022-23 school year for this collection of recaps of artistic, academic, and social highlights, top takeaways, surprises, summer plans, and more. This installment features three Pre-College students. Keep an eye out throughout the summer for entries from other students.

Agastya Batchu

Highlights

• Playing third horn in Till Eulenspiegel. It’s a big part, and I had multiple solos. As hard as it was, the challenging nature of the piece pushed me to play more skillfully.
   
• The concerto competition. I didn’t win or make finals, but I believe I gave my best performance to the judges. I’d struggled with the piece for a while, so being able to play through with almost zero mistakes was an accomplishment.
   
• I was invited through Juilliard to play as a ringer with the Chineke! Junior Orchestra when it toured Europe last summer. I got to play with a lot of professional instrumentalists in some of the grandest halls in the music capitals of the world. The repertoire wasn’t easy, but I was able to pick up the pieces quickly enough. It was an amazing experience.

Top takeaway
Good teamwork is essential to playing music in ensembles. This seems obvious, but getting along and listening to fellow musicians makes everything work and sound much better. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a duet or an extended orchestra work, collaboration is key.

Pre-College hornist Agastya Batchu is in 10th grade at Newark Academy

Rebecca Hirschfeld

Top takeaway
I’ve treasured gaining exposure to a large group of immensely talented and interesting people. Conversations with peers between rehearsals, over lunch, and in passing have introduced me to new ideas and perspectives I would never have encountered in my high school.

Highlights

• Performing Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony with the Pre-College Orchestra. It’s one of the most important and challenging pieces from the tubist’s orchestral repertoire, and performing it made me realize how far I’ve progressed musically at Juilliard.

• Weekly rehearsals with my brass quintet. We play complicated but exciting works (often by living composers!) and also enjoy ourselves while doing so. I’ve grown tremendously by having the opportunity to connect musically and personally with them.

• Discussing and debating advanced topics beyond the tuba with my professors and peers. I was admitted to a college-level seminar for my junior and senior years at Pre-College, and we analyzed German song cycles, the theme-and-variations musical form, and atonality in orchestral music.

Pre-College tubist Rebecca Hirschfeld, who’s a senior at Mountain Lakes High School, will be teaching tuba lessons and tutoring math this summer before starting at Harvard

Daniel Choi

Highlights

• My senior recital—I really enjoyed performing works including Martinů’s Oboe Concerto.

• Performing Poulenc’s Sextet—I had never been in a sextet before, so I had a lot of new, exciting experiences in chamber music this year.

• The Pre-College Orchestra concerts—I enjoyed all the pieces we played, especially Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony.

Top takeaway
For me, music is best enjoyed when played alongside others. Some of my most joyful experiences at Juilliard have come from performing with others onstage, whether in a chamber ensemble or the orchestra.

Pre-College oboist Daniel Choi, who’s a senior at Riverdale Country School, will be returning to the National Youth Orchestra for a third summer and touring North America with Andrew Davis, Gil Shaham, and Hilary Hahn

These pieces are adapted from a special feature that originally appeared in the Summer 2023 issue of the Juilliard Journal