Bozeman Daily Chronicle: Mariel Werner a Montana student honored by White House
Playing a Beethoven piano sonata on the piano, 19-year-old Mariel Werner almost seems to dance as her fingers glide over the keys, her whole body leans into the music and her cheeks flush, mirroring the passion of the piece.
Werner then picks up her cello and, closing her eyes, gives a soulful, impromptu performance of a Tchaikovsky theme.
“It’s nice if the performer is expressive,” Werner said. “I find that helps convey the musical ideas from myself to the audience.”
She has been performing in public since age 10 with her brother and two sisters, when they first played at the Bozeman Christmas Stroll.
Since then, as the Werner Cello Quartet, they have been invited to play for audiences from a Wyoming school for delinquent girls, to a predominantly Hispanic school in Los Angeles, and music festivals in France, Austria and Holland.
Music is just one reason why Werner was chosen as one of Montana’s two U.S. Presidential Scholars this year.
