Final Forte 2025: Indre Raghavan

– My name is Indre Raghavan and I’m a junior at Middleton High School.
I’ve been playing violin since I was seven years old.
It can really showcase the emotion that humans feel.
I’m half Indian, half Lithuanian.
It’s kind of cool to know that I’m a part of so many different cultures.
In the beginning of August, my family always goes to Lithuania, and I get to see my cousins.
I’ve been a part of WYSO for a little more than eight years.
– Kyle Knox: Okay, beat, ready?
Three and four and… – Indre: Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras is a program where kids at any level will be put in orchestra and they can learn different skills.
– Now just feel the quarters together.
– Indre: It’s a really good opportunity just to immerse yourself in other types of music that you wouldn’t play alone.
– Ria Hodgson: Pepp-er-on-i piz-za.
[violin music] – Indre: I’m a teen teacher for WYSO Music Makers.
It’s really cool to work with younger kids and just kind of take myself back.
They’re, like, full of curiosity and I feel like that’s so cool.
– Eugene Purdue: Okay, start on the trill.
– Indre: I’ve been studying with Mr. Purdue for almost five years.
– Eugene: You know the first question I’m gonna ask you, right?
– Indre: He’s definitely helped me so much.
We’re always, like, working on intonation and making sure that you’re, like, representing yourself in the piece.
And making sure that it isn’t, like, you aren’t just, like, copying someone else’s interpretation.
[violin music] I started crossfit in 2020.
It’s like, lifting and running and box jumps and, like, a bunch of different things.
– Keysha: Nice!
– Crossfit is, like, a different way for me to, like, set goals for myself because I feel that violin is very subjective, like, you don’t know if you’re improving or not.
With crossfit, like, if you have a heavier weight, you know that you’ve improved.
– Higher, higher, faster!
– Keysha is definitely supportive, but she’ll definitely be, like, in your face if you’re not working as hard as, like, she knows you can.
– [laughing] Keep going, keep going.
– Indre: I always feel stronger after.
I’ll be playing Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D minor, first movement.
It starts out with, like, a really icy kind of arctic opening.
It kind of builds and becomes, like, more fiery, more stormy, and yeah, at the end, it’s kind of just like, everything!
I’ve already won, in my eyes, just, like, being able to play.
We’ve all won.
[ending note] [applause]