My Mizzou Story
Holly Huelskamp
Here's a twist: a violin student who drove her parents crazy because she wanted to practice all the time.
"They'd try to get me to stop," Holly Huelskamp, BM '03, says, "but I'd be rebellious and keep playing." Eventually her parents gave up trying to convince Huelskamp to switch her major to engineering. She was always good at math, so she had humored her parents for a while with a dual degree, but violin performance won in the end.
Put a violin under Huelskamp's chin and a transformation begins. The soft-spoken student emerges as an engaging performer. Wisps of blond hair float across her cheek unnoticed as she bows the instrument with graceful movements.
As a girl, she chose violin over viola because violinists get center stage and better parts. "I prefer performing to anything else," she says. "It's a rush." So it's no surprise that she favors music that "lets you go free and show off at the same time."
During her senior year, Huelskamp ranked among the top undergraduate collegiate violinists in the nation. She won state and regional levels and placed third nationally at the 2003 competition of the Music Teachers National Association. In early fall 2003, she reaffirmed her national stature by taking second place in the Young Artist Auditions of the National Federation of Music Clubs.
Those noteworthy accomplishments took "hours and hours and hours of practice," as many as five hours a day, plus two lessons a week and travel to numerous competitions.
Huelskamp has been concerto soloist with the Alton Symphony in Illinois and was featured in a Mizzou on Tour performance in St. Louis at The Sheldon Concert Hall. On March 20, she will play in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall through Mizzou on Tour.
From 1999 to 2003, she held the position of concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra, a title won through blind auditions in competition against upper-level and college students. The experience introduced her to many of the symphony players and the conductor, who wrote her a recommendation for graduate school.
As an undergraduate, Huelskamp studied with Professor Eva Szekely, who, she says, is a great teacher.
Huelskamp graduated in May with a bachelor's degree in violin performance and now studies at Indiana University with another of the nation's distinguished violin teachers, Paul Bliss. After hearing Huelskamp's audition, Bliss immediately accepted her as a student.