8th Grader Plays At Lincoln Center

Charlie Goldsmith of Amagansett, a student at the East Hampton Middle School, performed on the viola on Saturday in a concert at Lincoln Center in Manhattan with the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra. He was also the first student from the Amagansett School ever to qualify and play with the Long Island String Festival Association, in 2014, when he was in the fifth grade.

For Charlie, being a member of the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra requires two hours a week of mandatory practice, which means an almost three-to-four-hour round-trip commute on a school night once a week. He has not missed a practice all year, his family said, while maintaining a 93 average, joining the National Honor Society, making the high school’s varsity golf team as an eighth grader, and taking part in both the junior firefighting and the junior lifeguard programs.