Last week, Norah Chapa packed up her violin and headed to Carnegie Hall in New York City for a concert. Instead of sitting in the audience, 13-year-old Chapa walked on stage and played in front of a large crowd at one of the country’s most famous music halls.

While she stood on stage where famous acts like Judy Garland, The Bealtes and Yo-Yo Ma have played, she could look down and see her parents along with her two little brothers sitting in the second row.

“There were a lot more people than I thought there would be,” Chapa said. “It was really cool to play in front of all of them. The Hall is pretty big, so the sound was really big.”

Violin is Chapa’s thing. As an eighth-grader, she’s Oxford Middle School’s only student to go All-State in orchestra, plays in Oakland Youth Orchestra’s Philharmonia, spends some of her summer at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and was one of only 20 students nationwide chosen to play at Carnegie Hall last week.

To make the cut, Chapa submitted a video of herself playing the second movement of Canzonetta (Andante) by Tchaikovsky. She would later get about eight minutes of stage time to play the song at the iconic concert venue that’s been hosting musical artists since 1891.

“The lights weren’t as dim as they normally are, so I could see people,” Chapa remembered of her time on stage. “It was pretty cool to see all of the people looking at me.”

While she was in New York City, she spent some time living like a musician trying to make it big. Chapa did a little busking in Central Park, during which she played songs like Canzonetta, the “Harry Potter” theme and the “Pink Panther” theme for the passersby.

“Have you ever seen people stand on the street corner and play music? I did that for like 15 minutes,” she said. “People gave me money. It was pretty cool.”

But the affair didn’t give Chapa an ego. She tried to keep the whole thing pretty low key, and OMS Principal Dacia Beazley said that’s true to Chapa’s character.

“Norah is outstanding,” Beazley said. “She is a leader; she’s one of our designated leaders in our building. But she’s also a leader in her friend groups and with others. She helps the sixth-graders through the web program and does tours… Basically, she’s a stud.”

Chapa is often found in OMS strings classes. She said she wouldn’t be half as good as she is without the help of Oxford teachers like James Berezney. “If he hadn’t have helped me for those five years, I don’t think I could have played at Carnegie,” she said.

Chapa also practices with Sonia Lee, a critically-acclaimed violinist who also played Carnegie for the first time at 13 years old. From practice alone, Chapa plays in the ballpark of four hours weekly. She loves playing her violin, and sees herself doing that more as she gets older.

“When I’m older, I think I want to move to New York,” Chapa said. “I had so much fun there. We went to Times Square, that was cool. We went to Central Park, and we just got to walk everywhere. We didn’t need a car.”

With the help of her parents, brothers, teachers and orchestra pals, she knows she’ll get there. In the meantime, she’ll keep playing music inside OMS classrooms.

Chapa’s Carnegie performance can be viewed online here.