Teen violin virtuoso wins international competition

Brian Allen isn’t tired.

He isn’t tired of “high school drama.” Allen is home-schooled.

He isn’t physically tired like most high school students. Allen gets his eight to nine hours of sleep every night and is hardly ever sick.

And he isn’t tired of playing the violin, even though Allen has been playing for more than 10 years.

He was only 3 years old when he picked up his first violin. Allen’s father taught violin as a side job out of the family’s home.

“I loved listening in on the lessons, and one day after a lesson, I asked my dad if I could play,” Allen said. “He had wanted to get me started at 5.”

Allen began studying with a Suzuki-method teacher and then transferred to a more traditional-method teacher a couple of years later.

“He was able to develop such a good technique,” Brian’s mother Jan Allen said. “At that point, we tried to make sure that we supported his interest.”

At the age of 7, after moving to Bedford from Virginia, Allen began participating in the Jacobs School of Music’s Summer String Academy.

“It was a great transition for him,” Jan Allen said. “We plugged him into the String Academy with Dr. Brenda Brenner, and in one lesson she fixed a problem with his posture that we had been struggling with for years.”

After eighth grade, Allen and his parents made the decision that he would be home-schooled.

“I think in his case the major benefit (of home schooling) is the added practice time and time for rest,” Jan Allen said. “He is able to get eight to nine hours of sleep every night and stays healthy most of the time.”

In an average day, Allen practices three to four hours and travels to Bloomington for lessons in the afternoon.

At 13, Brian was accepted into the Violin Virtuosi, the top performance group at the String Academy.

And now, at the age of 16, Brian still isn’t tired. He recently won the Lions Clubs International Global Youth Music Competition. He was awarded a monetary prize of $10,000 and also traveled to Sydney for a week and a half to perform in the 2010 music competition.

He helped represent the United States in the competition that included musicians from multiple global regions, and he won first prize.

“The trip itself was wonderful, and it felt like a vacation,” Brian Allen said.

Brian plans to continue playing the violin and incorporating music throughout the rest of his life. As a junior, he is getting ready to take the PSAT and is beginning to prepare for college.

“My dream school is the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia,” Brian said. “Only about 150 students go there, and they accept less than one percent of applicants.”

Brenner believes Brian has what it takes to succeed in the musical field.

“Brian is very bright and hard-working and has a huge enthusiasm for the violin,” Brenner said. “He is just beginning on his pathway in the world of music. I expect to hear wonderful news of him in the next several years.”