Everyone has a dream, but for senior Besa Carney, her dream became a reality.

Over the summer, Carney was accepted to the Juilliard Summer Piano Composition Program in New York. The Juilliard Summer Program is exclusive and prepares pianists for success in college and future auditions.

“I have been playing since I was three years old, so about 13 years,” Carney said. “My mom put me into piano classes as a kid and I’m really thankful to have that opportunity because I really love piano and music.”

From a young age, Carney fell in love with playing piano and she has been interested in pursuing a career in music ever since.

“I am applying to Julliard, UT, Rice, Berkeley College of Music, and Harvard College of Music,” Carney said. “I really think attending the Juilliard camp will put me up there in their list to hopefully get into college.”

Carney’s love for piano has followed her throughout her childhood and she hopes to continue to make a career of music in her adult life.

“I’m planning on being a composition major, but I’m in the middle of choosing to be a composer or a sound producer,” Carney said.

According to Carney, the process of applying for Julliard’s Piano Composition Summer Program was very detail oriented, similar to a college application.

“I was scrolling on Instagram one day and I was applying to these summer camps so I could have a good resume for college and Julliard had an ad for their summer composition program,” Carney said. “I heard back from them about one to two months later in an email that they sent that said ‘there’s an update on your status.’”

Although the process of getting into Juilliard’s Summer Program was tedious it was worth it when Carney found out that she had gotten accepted.

“I was in choir class and I had my phone on me so I opened up the website to see if I got in or not, and when I saw that I got in I started sobbing and everybody was so happy,” Carney said.

Carney’s classmates were all happy that she got accepted, but Carney’s AP music teacher Randall Cantu has been one of her biggest supporters throughout her music career.

“This Julliard opportunity that she had over the summer is really just a combination of a lot of work that she’s done in the past three years, really since before middle school,” Cantu said.

With the support of Cantu and her family, Carney made the long journey to New York, although she wasn’t alone.

“One of my best friends got into the summer percussion program; he is a freshman at UNT,” Carney said. “My whole family was also there separately.”

Once Carney got to New York, her busy camp schedule started.

“We woke up at seven in the morning every day, then after breakfast we would have choir class so we would do that for an hour,” Carney said. “Then we would have an individual lesson with the faculty at Juilliard so we got to meet all of the composition teachers throughout the two weeks. After our lesson we would usually have lunch and then just more seminars.”

According to Carney, she was able to meet and take lessons from influential people in the composition industry.

“We got to meet a ton of really amazing popular people in the composition world, John Mackey, John Corigliano, Aeric Whitacre, some of the biggest names in composition right now,” Carney said. “We got to have seminars with them and also have lessons with the dean of music and he was really informative and talented.”

Carney really appreciated the opportunity to meet and learn from musicians that she looks up to. Carney’s musical experiences at Bowie, including classes with her jazz band teacher Jennifer Hanford helped her prepare for Juilliard camp.

“Besa is always a really naturally talented musician, and willing to step up and do things and she basically doesn’t ever say no,” Hanford said. “She will always be willing to help other people as well, if they’re struggling with their music or anything like that, she is always just a really helpful and really nice person.”

As high school comes to an end, Carney is excited to continue her musical journey.

“Juilliard is one of the best music schools in the world right now,” Carney said. “I was blessed to have that opportunity and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

This story was originally published on The Dispatch on October 28, 2024.