Music as an art and emotion, as described by Erika Veiszlemlein
Erika Veiszlemlein is a sophomore at Penn State and is majoring in Supply Chain and Information System. She is from Bath, Pennsylvania and is also the Vice President of Penn State’s Music Service club where she and her team perform music at nursing homes and around in Happy Valley.
She is a Violinist and has been playing the Violin from last twelve years starting from third grade. She was inspired by her brother to play the Violin. Erika and her brother are the only ones that play an instrument in the family. Erika’s parents believed that she was not patient enough to continue playing an instrument for long and so she took that as a challenge.
She has played in high school concerts and was also hired to play in weddings, local musicals and at Penn State she played for Life Link which is a program developed for students with disabilities. “For me i always associate it with relaxation rather than work.” Erika finds peace in Violin and says it has shaped her life the way it is today.
Erika is half Hungarian as her father was born in Hungary and he immigrated in the US when he was in his early 20’s and her mother was born in the US but her family comes from Austria. She says that her classical music taste comes from Hungarian culture. Her unique surname is Austrian/German and her family is the only one left in the world with this particular surname!
“Another really big thing i get from music is confidence.” She shares her experiences playing in concerts and how she has developed herself into a confident person because of that. “Every music teacher I have ever had has just lead me on a certain path that didn’t just include music but really shaped my entire life in general.” She gets emotional while she is explaining how she is still in contact with her music teachers from high school and how wonderful relationship they share. She says that it is just because of music that she has such wonderful people in her life.
