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Dream comes true for music student

Wantagh grad admitted to prestigious Eastman

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Music, says Wantagh’s Sophia Koukoulas, is a gift that should be shared with others. She is learning just how to do that in her first year as a music education major at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester.

Eastman is consistently ranked as one of the top music schools in the country, and only 13 percent of applicants are admitted. Koukoulas, 20, didn’t get in on her first try and went to the University of Connecticut following her 2012 graduation from Wantagh High School.

Koukoulas began playing the piano when she was 8 years old. Her cousins and some neighbors played, and she wanted to learn for herself. Family members gave her a piano, and she began taking lessons. Over the years, she honed her skills while also picking up other instruments.

When she was in middle school, Koukoulas was given a new piano by her parents, one that still sits in her Waterbury Drive home. She was both surprised and excited when the piano movers showed up at her house. “I’ll never forget that day when I saw them bringing it up the stairs,” she said.

Over time, she learned to play more complex pieces. Koukoulas enjoys impressionistic music, particularly from the Romantic period, and her favorite composers include Johannes Brahms, Frederic Chopin and Claude Debussy. She has numerous books of their songs.

In fourth-grade, Koukoulas learned to play the flute, and was part of the school band through high school. At UConn, she joined the symphonic band where she played both flute and piano.

When her piano professor there, Irma Vallecillo, announced her retirement, Koukoulas took another chance at getting into Eastman, her dream school.

“She never stopped believing that she could get in there,” said Koukoulas’s father, Anthony. “She was able to work hard and to get a second chance.”

Anthony Koukoulas credits much of his daughter’s success to the music instructors she has had along the way, from her private teachers, to the high school band leaders, to her college professors. There are people in his daughter’s life who made a big impact, he explained.

One of them was Cecilia Brauer, a pianist with the MET Orchestra. Brauer teachers piano from a studio in her Merrick Home, and taught Koukoulas for about three years when she was in high school.

“I could see the talent that was hidden inside of her,” Brauer said. “She was a good worker. I’m so proud to have had her.”

Brauer said her goal is to push her students to do their best, especially when she knows they have talent. With Koukoulas, Brauer knew she had immense skills, and taught her how to act like a professional musician.

Anthony Koukoulas said music teachers like Brauer instilled in his daughter the values of hard work and dedication. “You can have talent,” he said, “but you always have to practice.”

Sophia Koukoulas has that commitment. “I want to be the best musician I can be,” she said. “There’s still so much to learn.”

She aspires to be a music teacher and would ultimately like to teach at the college level. Koukoulas also sees herself doing some side gigs with a chamber orchestra performing in small venues, but admits that playing Carnegie Hall, a place she visited twice in high school, would be a dream come true.

Mindy Dragovich, one of Koukoulas’s high school band teachers, says her former student has what it takes to make it big. As a flute section leader, Dragovich said Koukoulas was meticulous and demanded a lot from the other players, and led the woodwind section in marching band with great precision and skill.

Dragovich said that it was Koukoulas’s piano playing that made staff members and students fall in love with her talent. Koukoulas won a French Idol contest by performing a piece by Debussy, and she also played solo for many school events. “She has tremendous talent,” Dragovich said. “Wantagh is very proud of Sophia.”

Koukoulas is not one to boast, her father said, but she is one to inspire. She sees her journey from an 8-year-old learning the piano to attending one of the top music schools in the country as a lesson for others.

“People shouldn’t give up on what they want to do and what their passions are,” she said. “If you know there’s something you like, why would you just give it up?”

Koukoulas said she enjoys playing the piano because it is an appreciated instrument, and she can tell stories through music. She will continue honing her craft for the next three years at Eastman, where she is currently taking a conducting class, performing at recitals and also singing with two choirs — the first time she has exercised her vocal instrument since elementary school.

She has an older sister, Victoria, and a twin brother, Alexander. Her sister, Koukoulas noted, was her inspiration to play the flute.

Thinking to all the people in her life who have made a difference, Koukoulas hopes she can do the same for others. Her message is simple — find your passion and pursue it. “If you’re inspired by something, go for it,” she said. “I’m lucky to have found something.”