By Casey Gillis

Published: April 24, 2008

When Marilyn Marks was in elementary school, playing the violin was just a fun thing to do.
“By eighth grade, I thought, ‘Hey, I think I want to do this for the rest of my life,’” she says, “which is pretty deep for a 14-year-old.”
The E.C. Glass High School senior, now 18, is in the midst of another deep thought: where she should go to college. She’s deciding between the Eastman School of Music in New York and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. But no matter where she ends up, Marks, who began playing when she was 5, plans to major in violin performance.
Marks also has an upcoming show to think about. She is the featured soloist at the Lynchburg Symphony Youth Orchestra and Junior Strings Ensembles’ weekend concert. It is scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday at Heritage United Methodist Church on Leesville Road.
She’s been part of the group since its inception in 2001.
“It’s fun to be with other kids who don’t dis classical music,” she says with a laugh. “It’s fun to hang out with people who know what you’re talking about.”
The group is made up of about 90 students from 32 area schools. They rehearse once a week from September to May and perform in two shows a year.
This upcoming spring concert will include movements from favorite classical compositions, as well as popular favorites.
Marks will be playing the first movement of the Wieniawski Violin Concerto No. 2. Also on the program: Finlandia, Engines of Resistance, American Portrait, The Children of Sanchez and Die Meistersinger Overture.
Despite all of her experience performing, including two previous solos, Marks says she still gets
nervous.
“I’m a total wreck until I start playing,” she says. “Then I’m like, ‘Oh, you know what you’re doing.’ After, there’s all this adrenaline … and I’m like, ‘Let’s do it again.’”