By Casey Pigg

Quincy University senior, Emily Cintron, stands on the rough turquoise carpet of the Connie Niemann Center in front of a room filled with family, friends, and peers. Despite the filled room, there is a deafening quietness in the atmosphere. Cintron takes a deep breath and begins.

Cintron took the stage of the Connie Niemann Center Feb. 23 to perform her last solo student recital. Cintron had been preparing for this recital for over a year.

“Normally, I try to get in 30 minutes to 1 hour a everyday including weekends. But, leading up to my recital, I was practicing 4-6 hours a day, which definitely takes a toll. But, it’s definitely worth it considering the talent that comes out of that. You improve so much. I think I did 4-6 hours for two weeks straight. I think that I improved more in those two weeks than the month before that,” Cintron said.

Her hour-long recital consisted of six pieces on the clarinet, with the last piece including the other three members of the Reed Between the Lines Clarinet Quartet to help demonstrate not only her growth as a musician over the past four years at QU, but her growth as a clarinetist since she started in sixth grade.

“Emily is a wonderful student who is eager to learn new things and to improve her musicianship,” Emily’s clarinet professor, Christine Damm, D.M.A. said. “Emily has improved her technical skills on the clarinet while deepening her artistic ability.  She is able to perform more technically demanding pieces than when she began studying clarinet with me and she had developed a more mature clarinet tone. I am proud of the hard work that Emily has done over the past four years, so I am happy that she is getting close to graduating.  It’s always  rewarding to see people realize their potential.”

Damm was not the only one exited to watch Cintron perform the recital that she has been working toward these past four years. Her boyfriend and fellow musician and QU student, Zach Vanderbol, shared in the excitement as well.

“I enjoy watching her perform and be excited about performing and doing well with her performances, which she always does,” Vanderbol said.

Now that her recital is over, Cintron is looking forward to the future and all that it holds. Cintron’s goal after graduation is to become an elementary school music teacher, where she will have the capability to instill the love of music into young children’s lives.

“I think that music should be apart of everyone’s education. You always hear people say that they regret not playing an instrument or that they regret quitting or what not. Just at a young age there is so much that comes out of knowing those things and sitting down and learning those things,” Cintron said. “There is so much that goes into music and so much focus that needs to be on one specific thing in order for you to be able to perform a piece of music. Even if it’s just singing with your class when you’re in the third grade. And that memorization and all of those skills help kids to learn life skills without even realizing that they are doing it.”