KTTZ sat down with local teen musician, Yuna Langehennig, who's been selected to play on NPR's "From The Top," and asked her 19 questions about herself and life as a flute player.
1. Three pieces of music you love:
Tchaikovsky's "6th Symphony," Dvorak's "New World Symphony," and a flute arrangement of Khachaturian's violin concerto.
2. Three recordings everyone should hear:
The flute arrangement by Khachaturian again, and everything else is pretty mainstream. I do like Joe Hisaishi, though. He composes music for movies but he also has a non-movie repertoire that is really beautiful.
3. Three musical heroes:
My first private lesson teacher, Margaret Redcay, my middle school band director, Robbie Edwards, and Lisa Garner-Santa.
4. An underrated piece of music:
Joe Hisaishi's music again!
5. Name a piece of music you could happily never hear again:
"Children's March" by Percy Grainger.
6. Your favorite concert:
My Youth Orchestra of Lubbock's spring concert of 2015.
7. Your favorite film:
The Wind Rises
8. A composer you wish had written for the flute:
Tchaikovsky wrote a lot of flute solos but nothing just for the flute. I'd like a Tchaikovsky flute concerto.
9. Three favorite places in the world:
Japan, the Grand Canyon, and Oberlin, Ohio where I went to the Oberlin Conservatory for flute.
10. Your proudest moment:
This past "All State" auditions. I completely bombed my first etude, but since the last etude was kind of boring I decided to get some attitude with it and I did really well. I saw the technical people giving me dirty looks but I thought, "Yeah, I did it."
11. What do you do to relax:
I like to sleep, and usually before I sleep, I eat.
12. What's your guilty pleasure:
I like to tease my friends. I know it sounds kind of mean, but my friends and I have this thing where we try to prank each other all the time.
13. Three living people you would love to meet:
Melanie Martinez since she's one of the only pop artists I listen to, Emmanuel Pahud, and Emma Watson because she's done so much and she's very inspirational.
14. A historical person you would like to meet:
Antonio Vivaldi. I don't think he'd understand me but I'd ask how he interpreted the four seasons into music.
15. A fictitious person you would like to be friends with:
There's a book series called "Eon" with a character named Eona, who was crippled and trained to live as a boy, but she became a warrior and leader during a huge civil war. She had to hide her identity and it's interesting to see how she coped.
16. Your favorite food:
Italian food and my mom's karaage, which is Japanese-styled fried chicken that's marinated in soy and garlic.
17. The best part about playing the flute:
The flute is a lot like me. It has this stereotype that it's quiet and blends into the orchestra, but when you do hear it play it has a lot of personality and a huge range of colors in the sound. Finding the difference in colors took me a while, but once you understand your flute it becomes a tornado of colors.
18. If you weren’t a flutist, what would you want to be:
A neurologist. I saw people dissecting a brain once, and just the concept that they had someone's whole life in their hands--their emotions and memories, I think that's amazing.
19. How excited are you to play on 'From The Top':
I’m very excited but I'm also nervous because it's national radio and if I mess up, a lot of people are going to hear. But I think I'll do fine.
You can see Yuna Langehennig and other talented musicians around Lubbock perform at NPR's "From The Top" on February 27th at 7pm in the Allen Theatre. For tickets and information, call Select-A-Seat: 806-770-2000, or selectaseatlubbock.com.