Let's get started and meet our first protege.

[upbeat music] Hi, my name is Alexa Claussen, and I'm a second-year master's student at UCLA pursuing a degree in percussion performance, and I have been an ABOP protege for the past two years.

In the past 13 years of my career as a young percussionist, there have been a lot of challenges that I've faced and a lot of rewards that have also come out of challenges.

So some of the challenges I've had have been like mental challenges where I'm thinking and comparing myself to all of these other great players that I've heard and other students that I'm friends with thinking that, oh, I'm not as great of a player as them, and I wish I could do everything that they're doing.

But that's not a great mindset to be in, and that is something I've realized, and I feel like I've gotten a bit better with this challenge, but I do still find myself thinking that way.

And then just the challenge of there not being any other Black female percussionists around me basically ever until I entered ABOP, especially during high school is when I really noticed it because it was just like, "Oh, I'm the only one here, and I'm the only one who's ac- like in my section who's actually really focused on music and not just like, oh, wind ensemble is just something I have to do just to graduate." 'Cause music at that time was just very important.

But after entering ABOP, I've just been really grateful to be able to meet a whole lot of other female percussionists and grow my network through that.