Carnegie Hall is a place where the orchestra, band and other musical talents perform, and senior bass player Alyssa Nagle just joined the list of musicians to play there. 

Nagle was invited to play bass at Carnegie Hall Feb. 7-11 by the Honors Performance Series at Carnegie Hall. More than 1,200 video auditions from around the country were sent in. Her orchestra director nominated her for the Carnegie Hall Program. 

“I was absolutely ecstatic, and also really grateful, that my orchestra teacher found out about the program to nominate me,” Nagle said.  

During this event, she also got to see a Broadway classic, “Phantom of The Opera,” which those at Carnegie Hall said would enhance her musical experience. She watched it on Broadway, and afterwards they came back and talked about the performance and elements of it she could learn from. 

“It was amazing, it was definitely something that helped us with our music education,” Nagle said. 

Her journey in music began in fourth grade as she waited in a line for her school’s orchestra open house to choose her instrument. She has now played for nine years.   

“The line for trying out the cellos wrapped around the school and the bass line had two people, so I was like, ‘I’ll try that,’ and then I kind of fell in love with it,” Nagle said.  

Nagle said her experience at Carnegie Hall was hard to put into words. 

“As high schoolers, none of us really felt like we deserve it per se because people play 30, 40 years as professionals before they get to perform there,” Nagle said. “[I’m] super grateful that somebody had taken the initiative to start a program like that to allow high schoolers to participate. It’s mind boggling that I’ve gotten to play on same stage as some of the greatest musicians ever in the past century.” 

Nagle said her musical inspiration is her private teacher, who is a principal bassist and a lead-by personality-person. When she is in her lessons, he never yells when he corrects or praises. 

“Both musically, and as a section leader, I try to have that kind of quiet sense of leadership,” Nagle said. “Definitely something to aspire to.”  

Nagle said her takeaway from this whole experience is to have others try out for events like these because anything is possible. 

“I just think people need to put themselves out there more, and you hear that all the time, but honestly I did not think this was a possibility,” Nagle said. 

Nagle said she plans to attend the Naval Academy for swimming and to keep bass a part of her life.