Morgan Fay

Just a little clip of my performance from a student violin recital. I was very happy and thankful to be joined by incredible musicians: my teacher Mirabai on viola, Dylan on cello, and my dear friend and director on octave mandolin 💕

This is “Nihavent Longa”, a Turkish instrumental dance song in the maqam Nihavent, plus the beginning of a short taqsim, or improvised solo.

This year my focus is on playing more complex pieces, getting faster, and understanding maqamat for taqsim. I’ve been playing for 4 years and 4 months now! There’s always more to learn. Grateful to all my teachers and all the jams I’ve been attending to try to get better at my instrument.

! I’ve been working on choreographing a new piece and debuted it this weekend at the , which is a lovely competition here in the Pacific Northwest (photos and video coming soon!)

The choreography process is interesting. I had to create this piece for the competition, as that incentive is really the only way I could get myself to do the work. Sometimes with any art, you can’t wait for the muse to strike, you just have to get in the studio and try things.

I’m excited to see the performance video from the competition. I placed second in the Wild Rose Pro category and got to share the stage with incredibly talented and hardworking dancers!

Improvisation! Both in the violin taqsim and dancing.

My favorite part of dancing to live music is the communication that happens between musician and dancer. Each responds to each other to make a conversation.

Thanks .moltke for the awesome taqsim and .guy for the video!

There’s something so magical about dancing to live music!

Thank you to for the fabulous music, .guy for the video, and for organizing this wonderful show!

I can’t believe it’s been four years of playing violin already! I keep making these practice videos and posts because I want to show that adults can keep learning and growing and that practice is not glamorous, but also so I am able to see my progress. When you are in the middle of learning, sometimes you can’t see how far you’ve come so far.

In 2026, I have so many opportunities to learn and play with other musicians. I get to work on a bunch of new pieces that are really challenging for me, three of which I’m sure will be yearlong projects.

This piece, Batwanes Beek, is very special to me. I love this song so much. I love Warda’s voice, I love the lyrics of the song, I love dancing to it. I get to practice Arabic as I learn it. And now, playing it on violin, I am seeing how excellent the musicians are and how complex what I am hearing is.

Here I am playing at the start of the year and I’ll post myself playing at the end of the year to see how much I grow.

Practicing a Turkish Roman jam that I learned from ! What an incredible piece of music!

I am quickly approaching my 4th year of violin and while I know this is a lifelong journey and there is so much more to learn, this third year of playing has brought much happiness and growth.

I’ve had the opportunity to study with a few different teachers, attend violin class at music camp (where I definitely cried and had to go play by myself for a few hours to catch up with the other students), go to a bunch of local jams (and be super inspired by musicians with years of experience who can shred on songs).

I am so grateful to my teachers and bandmates who challenge me to continue to grow, giving me new songs to learn and making sure that practice is non-negotiable (because people are going to hear me play, I don’t have a choice 😬).

Happy early violin birthday to me and my precious baby Rufus 🎻. Here’s to another year of growth in 2027!

Pre-show drum solo warm up!

2026 is fast approaching and I’ve been thinking about what to do with dance. I’m trying to do less things, which is difficult because there are so many fun opportunities! But I’m starting my masters program work and that means I’m shifting my focus to being a student again.

I’m excited to make the shift from solo work to more group projects and focus on personal practice! I’ll try to be better at posting my practice and progress in 2026.