You are listening to a Clarksville magazine podcast with your host and narrator Kate Baker,

greetings Clarksville citizens and welcome to the last story for the month of October 2022.

Issue 193. I do hope this podcast finds you

well and healthy and safe. And as always, thank you for showing up. Thank you for staying with me

as I read you a story. And thank you for your support. Whether it's engaging with us on Twitter,

telling a friend about the magazine, buying a subscription, or going over to patreon.com,

for slash Clarksworld, every bit of support does help us bring you these stories each and every

month. So thank you for being a part of that. Our story is titled Rondo for Strings and Laser Gun

and is by Jared Oliver Adams. Jared Oliver Adams, who can be found at the website, Jared

Oliver Adams.com, lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he writes, explores, and dabbles and things

better left alone. He holds two degrees in music performance, a third degree in elementary education,

and is utterly incapable of passing a door without checking to see if it leads to Narnia.

So with that, my dear listener, I hope you can sit back, relax, and let me read you a story.

Theme While the main theme of key space Rondo for cello and orchestra hugs the shoreline of

romanticism. The episodes between refrains climb the Andes to harvest the folk music of the composer's

youth, returning richer for each excursion. Chaska Hiwapaya loses herself in the performance.

Her bow glides, skitters, bounces, grinds. She uses the body of the instrument as a drum.

She strums the strings with her fingernails like a street corner, shurango player.

Her black hair flies free from its pins to cling to her youthful cheeks, her finger strike with

perfect precision. When the piece crashes to a close, the audience's applause thunders her from her

trance. The conductor pulls her to her feet to remind herself to smile. The Argentine Bolivian

curates pins the performance to the top of their newsfeed. 16-year-old prodigy electrifies

...