School: Newton South High School

Gabe Lefkowitz is having a busy autumn: besides performing for the Red Bull Artsehcro, he just started his freshman year at Columbia University. Being busy is nothing new to the Massachusetts native, who attended public school while playing with the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras for ten years (five of them as concertmaster) and who has also participated in the Tanglewood Music Center festival, performed as a soloist with the New Philharmonia and North Shore Philharmonic Orchestras, and presented recitals at the Stockbridge Chamber Music Series. In 2004, Lefkowitz composed and performed an original solo version of “Amazing Grace” for a 9/11 remembrance on the internationally televised opening night of the Democratic National Convention. “Of course I was pretty nervous,” he remembers, “But to communicate to so many people was one of the highlights of my life.”