Myron Liu, a senior at Free State, pounds on the keyboards during rehearsal with his band Head-On-Collision. His bandmate, Evan McGeorge, plays the bass in the background.

Myron Liu is the ArtStar for the month of March. He's concertmaster with the Free State High School Orchestra, a member of the All-City Chamber Orchestra and member of the district orchestra. He also performs with the rock band Head-On Collision.

Whether he’s swaying to Mozart with a violin under his chin, or head-banging with his own rock band, Myron Liu feels equally at home.

“It’s just music,” he says. “It’s what you feel inside.”

Liu’s eclectic music tastes and skills have helped earn him the ArtStar Award for the month of March. The award is sponsored by Peoples Bank.

Liu, a senior at Free State High School, has been playing the violin since he was 7.

“One day some people came in, some players showing us string,” he recalls. “I just fell in love with the sound of the violin.”

He stuck with it, and now he’s concertmaster with the Free State Orchestra, a member of the All-City Chamber Orchestra and a member of district orchestra.

“He’s one of the most sensitive musicians I’ve ever had,” says Lynn Basow, Free State orchestra director. “He’s always there. He’s always in class, always ready to play. He’s the type of person who would be unassuming in many ways until he puts his violin under his chin, and then he’s a very, very strong leader, a very fine player.”

Alter ego

But while he’s a classical musician by day, he’s a rocker at night.

Liu is a member of the rock band Head-On Collision, which is made of four Free State students.

In a previous incarnation of the band, he played violin. But for the current band, he taught himself to play keyboards.

“Playing violin kind of gave me all the theory for piano,” he says. “I’ve never taken (piano) lessons.”

He describes the band’s sound this way: “It’s just rock – melodic rock, I guess.”

“We mix it up, change the sound a little bit,” he says. “It’s a lot of fun playing shows and just playing music we like.”

Basow says she isn’t sure how much overlap there is between Liu’s rock band and his orchestra playing.

“I’d say there’s the carryover that when it’s time for them to perform somewhere, he’d know how to pull the band together versus another member who hadn’t performed with another group,” Basow says. “He’d say, ‘OK, we have to practice this much.'”

Musical balance

With Head-On Collision, a part-time job at a Chinese restaurant and studying – he has a 3.9 GPA – Liu sometimes finds it difficult to find time to practice his violin.

“I’ve been trying to practice as much as I can,” he says. “It’s kind of hard with work and homework, but I usually practice a couple hours a few nights a week.”

Liu is considering the universities of North Carolina and Minnesota for college next year. He’s not sure what he wants to major in, but he’s pretty sure it won’t be music.

That said, he wants to keep music – both the rock side and the classical side – a part of his life following high school.

And his college roommates might be intrigued by Liu’s eclectic CD collection.

“It’s mostly rock,” he says. “But sometimes I’ll put on something classical, I guess.”