Portrait of a Young Artist: Mheena Basin

This week's Student Artist is Mheena Basin. She has been playing the violin since she was four years old and just switched to the viola two years ago. When she was 12 years old, she started taking lessons at the Manhattan School of Music every Saturday, which she did until she graduated high school. For the past summers, she has been going to the Perlman program summer camp (named after the violinist Itzhak Perlman). When she was six and nine years old, she went to Japan with her teacher who was invited by the Japanese government to bring some of her students along. She did some solo and group work in those recitals. In 1999 and again in 2000, she went to Israel through the Perlman program. There, she played in orchestral and chamber music recitals.

This past summer, she went to China with the Perlman program.

Currently, she is enrolled in the dual program at the New England Conservatory. She plays in the NEC orchestra and takes private lessons. While she was still in the country, the Daily was able to talk with her.



Daily: Why did you start playing the violin, and why did you later switch to the viola?

Mheena: I started playing because my mom is a music lover and wanted her kids to play instruments. I liked the sound of violin the most. I switched because I started playing the viola one summer for fun and then, I just really liked it and decided to officially switch.



Daily: What is your greatest musical moment?

Mheena: One of the most amazing things I feel I've done is play in Carnegie Hall with the Israel Philharmonic. I was a featured performer in a piece for four violins with Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, and another student.



Daily: What is your favorite type of music?

Mheena: I love classical music. I love to listen to it and to play it, but I like to listen to other music, as well. I also listen to Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Sting. Recently, I've been listening to Portishead and I used to like Dave Matthews a lot.



Daily: If you were to have a classical music calendar in your room, who would you put in the calendar? And would any of these people wearing bikinis?

Mheena: I would definitely include Brahms because he's my favorite composer. And sure, I'd put him in a bikini, simply for curiosity and amusement's sake. I would also add Itzhak Perlman to the calendar because he's my favorite violinist but, not in a bikini



Daily: Why do you want to study music?

Mheena: I've been struggling with the musical training process where there are "rights and wrongs" because it seems like you have to learn the rules so that, later on, you can break them. I feel there are limits in learning an art in a classroom, but also learning from other musicians can be really inspiring. And there's a lot of amazing musicians teaching at the NEC that have inspired me on many occasions already. Fortunately, I don't feel as limited as I do inspired right now.



Daily: If classical music was a type of a tree, what type of a tree would it be and why?

Mheena: I would say it would be the oak trees on the president's lawn because they each have so much variety and so much color, especially during the fall. I like that there are so many varieties of colors and that their shades are indescribable, just like classical music. Music is all about what words can't say.



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