PITTSFIELD, Mass. (AP) — A scholar who stated he obtained goosebumps the primary time he performed the violin in an orchestra is that this 12 months’s recipient of a faculty scholarship given in honor of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and killed in Pakistan in January 2002 whereas investigating a narrative on terrorism.
Geivens Dextra, who’s scheduled to graduate from Pittsfield High School on Sunday, will use the $2,000 Daniel Pearl Berkshire Scholarship to review music on the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The scholarship has been awarded yearly since 2003 to a highschool scholar from the Berkshire Hills area of western Massachusetts who plans to main in journalism or music, Pearl’s passions. Pearl’s journalism profession started within the area.
“It’s really an honor to receive this scholarship for music, a subject that meant so much to Daniel Pearl,” Dextra stated Wednesday.
Dextra’s first formal introduction to music got here within the second grade when his mom put him within the after-school music program, Kids 4 Harmony, he wrote in his scholarship essay.
Inspired by a cousin already in this system, he took up the violin and ultimately obtained to play with Bard College’s Longy’s Sistema Side-By-Side Symphony Orchestra.
“I can vividly remember getting goosebumps when playing alongside the brass and winds for the first time, and instantly falling in love with orchestral music,” he wrote.
In highschool, he carried out within the college orchestra and the musical theater pit orchestra. He volunteered as a mentor and labored as a educating assistant for Kids 4 Harmony, and performed in a number of orchestras and summer season applications, together with the Boston University Tanglewood Institute.
He additionally composed a chunk of music for “Hear Me,” a documentary about gun violence and drug abuse in Berkshire County.
“Doing this project has opened my eyes to how music can be used to spread awareness in my community and in the spirit of Daniel Pearl, I am eager to take on more opportunities that can make a change in society through music,” he wrote.
Pearl, south Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped and killed in Pakistan in January 2002 whereas investigating hyperlinks between Pakistani militant teams and Richard C. Reid, often called the “shoe bomber.” Reid had tried to explode a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives hidden in his footwear, a flight that was diverted to Boston.
Pearl started his journalism profession on the North Adams Transcript and The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield.
The scholarship is funded by contributions from the newspapers in addition to Pearl’s buddies and former colleagues.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”