I have been playing trumpet since the fifth grade, and I like to think it was truly my first love. All of my anger, sadness, and joy go into my playing, and it comes out the other side of the horn as a beautiful sound we call music. I don’t know where I would be in life right now if I had never picked up that trumpet, or even who I would be as a person.
Watch Morgan Renee Hylbert perform Slavische Fantasie by Carl Hohn on the trumpet for the 2026 Winter Music Competition as part of the Charleston International Music Competition.