Samuel “Adán” Martinez is a 20 year old local activist, strings teacher, musician, and a St. Petersburg native to the Tampa Bay area. He currently is a full-time Music Studies Major minoring in Entrepreneurship at the University of South Florida in Tampa, and he plays with the Tampa Bay Symphony. Adán began playing the viola at the age of 11 through the Fine Arts program at his middle school. He didn’t have access to weekly lessons or musical resources and had many different on-and-off lessons with various strings teachers in the area. By his junior year in high school, Adán would play his viola on the street corners in downtown St. Petersburg to earn money for his viola payments, private viola lessons, and overall living expenses. Busking every Friday and Saturday night opened up many different doors for Adán as he met retired musicians with musical connections to members of the Florida Orchestra who eventually would teach him. He went on to receive many local accolades his senior year from winning first place in the Mayor’s Youth Showcase to headling an event with John Legend. Adán believes that “Music was a great outlet for all of the negative aspects of his childhood/reality and opened his eyes as to how he could make a positive impact on other people’s lives through music.”
Adán would like to promote the organizations Gathering of Women (you can contact them at thegatheringofwomen2@gmail.com) and The Arts Conservatory for Teens (https://www.actstpete.org/).
Audio edited by Hyuntae Choi
