I'm Benjamin Watson and I'm a horn player.

So I've heard that you have gravitated toward music since you were born.

And there are some fun stories from when you were a toddler.

Yeah.

So my mother was actually in the hospital having my little brother and my grandpa was babysitting.

He heard me in my room singing the melody from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

The last movement, Ode to Joy.

And, like, recognizing it as Beethoven.

I was less than a year and a half.

That's really young to start singing.

I have very good memory for pitch, as well as like the fingerings and everything.

It just sticks in my head for some reason.

That's going to be a great asset.

Yeah it will.

I can memorize pieces, like, after two runs.

What drew you to the French Horn?

Well, first of all, it's objectively the prettiest instrument in the orchestra.

I mean, there's so much you can do with it.

There's loud tootie passages in Mahler or a quiet Ravel solo.

I am auditioning for the National Youth Orchestra, and that's kind of like my dream ensemble to play in, at least until I get out of high school.

It’s a program run by Carnegie Hall, where the top orchestral players under the age of 18 study with the top masters of your instrument in the US.

Sounds like a really great opportunity.

It’s a great opportunity, but man, the audition process is so difficult.

It’s like 5% acceptance rate.

If that.

Especially for horn, there's four positions in that orchestra.

My hopes are high, but my expectations are low.

Well, I wish you good luck with that.

Thank you.

I do have to credit my piano teacher a lot with keeping the music enjoyable.

He really makes it a lot of fun practice, he got me into Classical music in like, the beginning with Beethoven sonatas, Mozart, stuff like that, simple piano things.

And it sort of expanded from there.

And you're actually playing together today, right?

What's that like?

Yeah we are.

He’s my accompanist.

I'm so lucky to be playing with him.

I know I'm sort of pushing myself to my limits even past them sometimes with dynamics, tempos, stuff like that, but I'm really trying to convey, like, what the music is supposed to sound like.