By Michael Aviles
At such a relatively young age, Emma Hayes, a 15 year old sophomore at Oliver Ames High School, has performed a solo part in a piece as part of the high school orchestra while performing at Carnegie Hall, a stage that many musicians only ever dream of performing at.
Emma has been a viola player for many years, beginning her music career in 4th grade when she made the decision to play viola for the school’s orchestra.
“My original choice was actually the violin, but there were too many violinists because, I don’t think anyone really knew what a viola was, so they stuck me with a viola, and I’ve been playing, I think it’s seven years total almost”.
Emma responded to all questions regarding the orchestra and music with her hands constantly moving enthusiastically. She is incredibly devoted to her instrument, even though, when asked if she’d play violin if offered the choice again, she gave an answer I did not expect.
“I actually think I would have chosen the cello, now that I’ve gotten more experience with it, because, as much as I love the viola because of it’s deep and rich sound, the cello amplifies that because of its size and the thickness of its strings… I think playing the cello would definitely be much cooler than the viola, but I don’t really have time to learn another instrument”
Outside of the orchestra, Emma also performs with the chamber orchestra, which only a select few musicians are able to. Even still, her musical prowess doesn’t end there, as she is also part of another orchestra in Rhode Island.
“The orchestra I’m in is called the Rhode Island Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, and within that orchestra, it’s basically this huge music school, so you go and you audition, and you get placed into these different groups that they have, most of it is by age, and there’s also skill level incorporated” she responded when asked about the orchestra, clearly elated while talking about it. “It’s really fun, actually. What I didn’t really realize about this orchestra is that the way that this orchestra at OA is conducted, isn’t how it’s conducted everywhere else”.
Emma ultimately described the orchestra there as being more relaxed, compared to the orchestra here at OA, all the while still endlessly smiling.
“My conductor, his name’s Vincent Mattera…he’s much more laid back, I think there’s a lot less pressure than there is here, because a lot of the kids that are there go to… a high school in Rhode Island and they don’t actually have an orchestra there, so they audition for this group in order to incorporate ensemble skills… I’m actually the only one from Massachusetts”.
Emma’s long devotion to playing viola has not gone unnoticed either. During the orchestra’s recent trip to New York, she performed a solo part in the piece “Waltz No. 2”, by Dmitri Shostakovich, at Carnegie Hall, which is an accomplishment many professional musicians never get. When asked if she was nervous about performing, as the interview was conducted before the performance, she replied confidently that that both was and was not the case.
“I think, in all honesty, my orchestra career has been leading up to a moment like this. Did I expect it to be Carnegie Hall? God no, but, it definitely seems surreal”, she responded, even more elated than before. “I think that, if I hadn’t been introduced to the viola, and I did end up being put as a violinist, I don’t think I would’ve fell in love with the instrument as much. I know that I’m gonna walk on that stage, and I’m going to be terrified, but that’s a moment I’m never gonna get again”.
However, even with her outstanding musical ability and joyous atmosphere about her, Emma has, like many others, fought with depression in the past and still does to this day, specifically naming two variants of depression that she has been diagnosed with.
“I just found out recently from my therapist, who I’ve been seeing for about a year, almost a year and a half now, that I have two different types of depressive disorders. One is situational, and the other is called dysthymia. Dysthymia is when you, an adolescent specifically I should say…”. At this point Emma takes a breath, her voice noticeably shaky. “What typically happens is for two years, it is a constant and persistent depression, and then once those two years are over, you start to experience these, what I like to call ‘funks’. What happens is you go through these periods of a depressed state, where it’ll last for, for me personally, it could last a week, it could last a day, it’s very random, and I can’t control that”.
As Emma continued to talk about her depression, her voice became slightly more hushed, with longer breaks in between individual words and sentences, and she began to stutter very slightly.
“I’ve been dealing with depression for as long as I can remember, to be honest. I can remember going to my friend’s house when I first moved to Easton… in second grade, and I would be in her backyard in the winter, and I would just feel like, all of a sudden, my whole body just kinda crashed, and it was very weird to me, cause I was only like seven or eight at the time. I didn’t really know what I was feeling, I didn’t really know what was going on”.
Emma continued to talk about her experiences with her mental illness, bringing up how our current generation is quick to use the term “depressed” improperly, or in a humorous manner, which, being a victim of real depression, understandably is troubling for her.
“I think people need to understand that there’s a difference in being depressed and feeling depressed. I know specifically, in our generation, there’s kind of like a joke around mental illnesses, and, obviously, as someone who’s biased and has one, it’s very frustrating, because I take those things to heart”.
As Emma talked about this, and how teens sometimes use mental illnesses like depression in a comical manner, her tone was not angry or irritated as one might think. Instead, she sounded more worried than anything, still talking in a relatively quiet and shaky voice.
“I’ve heard people say ‘Oh, I’m gonna go jump off a bridge because I’m gonna get a 90 on this test and that’s not good enough’, and now I’ll never know what’s going on in their life. I will never know what, specifically, they’re dealing with”.
It’s clear how this a sensitive subject to hear people joke about for her. Not only does she actually suffer from depression, but people won’t tend to ask those who joke about depression if they’re actually going through something, because they have presented it as something to laugh about. However, there is another aspect to depression that people might not understand, as Emma explained.
“Something that also happens, all the time, is I get told that I don’t seem like a person who would have depression”. This is something that I myself am guilty of. “People always associate depression with ‘Oh, you’re sad all the time’, or ‘Oh, you’re emo’, like you look depressed, but there’s never a face for depression. There are people that do fit that stereotype, I’m not gonna say that there aren’t… people just don’t understand the complexity of it, which I think is also a big problem… people have become so desensitized to depression, I think, because, like I was saying before, it’s basically a joke now”
However, even through the frustration she endures from seeing a mental illness she suffers through every day be used as a joke, Emma, as usual, is able to find the positivity in the situation.
“I’m glad they don’t get it, like I’m glad they don’t have depression. I’m glad they don’t have to deal with these circumstances because it sucks… I wish the best for them cause, I mean people deserve a good life, but just because you’re not going through something that someone else is, that doesn’t mean you can’t be open to new things and open to understand what else is going on in your own world”
Emma also had a message to share, coming from her own experience, to any others who are suffering from depression.
“From experience, I can say that it will get better. I can’t tell you when, I can’t tell you how, all I can tell you is that you just have to take that first step… and whatever that means to you, do it. Do what you need to do, and I’ll be right here for you”.
Even through her battles with depression, Emma Hayes has learned how to not only fight it, but overcome it to the best of her ability, and it has not restricted her from becoming a social, outgoing person and an incredibly skilled musician. Her solo at Carnegie Hall, might I add, she played beautifully.