Quote

Music has been a huge passion of mine ever since I started playing the piano at age 3. Going to concerts, performing on my own, and listening to my favorite artists growing up confirmed that love for music and made me want to pursue it as a career.

Music has always been a large part of my life, and I'm very fortunate to be able to start a career doing something I love.

I think music has always been what I always wanted to do, but I didn't know how or when I was going to get discovered.

I was always in love with music, but my parents never really saw that I had talent, and it was really just by chance that I made it into the Menuhin School, and from then on my life changed. And that was when I realized, OK, this is what I want to do. But, until then, it was really just a passion, a hobby.

I had a very thorough grounding in music; I'd grown up around songs. My parents listened to a lot of music. My dad was majorly into jazz, which was absolutely a big influence on me, even if it was more subconsciously as a kid.

When I started music, I started out in Puerto Rico with classical music. But what really made me want to be a musician was jazz, and because I didn't grow up with jazz, I had to learn it from a very basic level. I had to go into the history and learn everything about the development of the music, all the players and all that stuff.

Up until the last minute, it was art and drawing for me. That was the first real and natural thing I thought I was good at and loved to do. But I developed a similar kind of love for music.

I got into music when I was a little boy. My dad was always into jazz. I got my education from him. The first time I listened to jazz, he gave me a Thelonious Monk record. It was so different from anything I had ever heard. It took me a while to understand it, and I liked that. I liked the fact that it wasn't immediately palatable.