Everyone has a soundtrack to their life; music that captures their personality and they could listen to constantly. Some people’s might be Frank Sinatra, Queen, Taylor Swift, Bob Marley, or even Drake. But, this isn’t the case of Erik Newland…. He creates his own.

The musical journey for Erik Newland started at a young age, when he began to play piano, and would only get bigger and better from there.

“Music has always been a part of my life. It’s how I’ve always expressed myself,” Newland said.

His start in music began when he started to play piano at age seven. Newland says his mother, Marianne Newland, was highly influential in him starting piano.

“Erik would come from school and instead of playing video games, he would go sit at the piano,” Marianne said. “I think Erik was all about music from the beginning.”

Since then, he has also picked up saxophone and clarinet. Newland is involved with music programs extensively both inside, and outside of school. He has also performed in many shows outside of school, including the All-State Concert Band, All-State Jazz Band, and the Telluride Jazz Festival in Colorado. Newland was also recently accepted to play tenor saxophone at Abbravanal Hall, which only two people are honored with each year.

But, music isn’t the only thing for Newland. On top of his extensive musical background, he is a band officer, in the IB program, a National Honor Society member, on the Highland swim team, and also swims on a club team.

“Some days, I’m triple, or even quadruple booked,” Newland said.

Most people would find this a struggle, but not Newland. Despite his busy schedule, he still manages to find time for, not to mention excel at, everything he does.

“Sometimes, he’ll stay up till 5am to finish an assignment for IB. He wants everything to be top-notch, high quality work; and I definitely think that shows in his music as well,” Marianne said. “He always felt like he had to find one thing he was really passionate about. Not mild or medium, but strongly. That is what music is to him.”

Newland is constantly pushing higher and striving to excel at anything he does. Recently, for a state music competition, Newland was struggling to find a piece to play, seeing as classical saxophone music is hard to find. Newland found a piece that he was told was for college level, and extremely advanced. His teacher told him he shouldn’t play the piece, and save it for much later. But, Newland was determined. He ended up performing that piece, and was the only tenor saxophone to get a top score in the competition.

“It’s satisfying to work at something really hard and get to see the results,” Newland said.

Another musical component a part of Newland’s life is jazz improvisation. Newland says improvisation is scary to do, and even said his biggest stage fright moment was his first attempt at an improvised saxophone solo his freshman year.

“Jazz improvisation isn’t what people think it is. It isn’t a feeling, it’s entirely mathematical. It takes a lot of preparation and practice beforehand,” Newland said.

It’s also a lot of studying key melodies and licks (which are the patterns of notes for each key). Improvisation is very traditional and unique to jazz. Even though jazz improvisation is very mathematical, it doesn’t begin to cover Newland’s feelings for music in general.

“[Music] is my release in life. Whether it’s listening or playing, it’s how I’ve expressed myself,” Newland said.

Newland doesn’t know what he wants to major in once he graduates, but he plans to attend the University of Utah with a minor in music, and also plans to join the U’s jazz band and wind symphony. But, no matter where Newland decides to go in life, he is guaranteed to find success… and music wherever life takes him.