(mid-tempo symphonic music)
- My name is Gabriel Schirn,
and I'm studying chemical engineering.
- Calculating the difference between our predicted gammas
and our experimental gammas.
- [Professor] On the rods, we have bare wire therma couples
that are embedded in epoxy so they don't touch the metal.
- And I'm also studying piano performance.
(slow piano music)
Finding whatever it is in the moment
that I really connect to that inspires me
that makes me feel alive.
That's what I wanna be doing.
(piano music)
I started wanting to become an engineer
when I was about six or seven, living in Idaho.
I had a cousin who was an engineer
at one of the labs there.
I was inspired by
his responsibility,
his ability to provide for himself
with such a stable career,
and later on,
(fast-paced symphonic music)
when I was in middle school, I became so passionate
about music and I wanted to give everything to it.
(fast-paced symphonic music)
I can talk a lot about music, like I'm encyclopedia
about music, so if you have any music questions. (laughs)
- [Interviewer] I like that.
(symphonic music)
- [Gabriel] I've kind of ended up finding a balance
between engineering and becoming a concert pianist.
(symphonic music)
I discovered knitting when I was in elementary school
at a Waldorf School in Prescott.
(piano music)
In fifth grade, knitting was mandatory for everyone.
Girls and boys, everyone.
So I had to go through it.
I had to make a very conscious decision
to pick it back up again.
That Christmas, when I didn't have money to buy gifts,
and I wanted something to kinda
destress from finals with,
this kind of sparked a lightbulb in my brain
as a really great activity in so many different ways.
This year, I've discovered the U of A poetry center,
which is convenient to the music building
and a nice stroll away.
Lately, I've been into Mary Oliver and Robert Frost,
so I'll look through some of their poems
and if there's one that I particularly connect with,
I'll write it dow in a journal or in my planner
and I kind of meditate on the meaning of the poem
and try and connect to it.
A way to find a new perspective
from all my other stuff going on in life.
(bell tolls)
When I was in
my freshman year of college,
I was in a bike race,
and I took a very serious crash,
I had to be helicoptered out,
and I spent about 12 days in the hospital
and then a week in rehab
and I was in a kind of coma from the brain trauma,
and it was a very life-threatening situation.
Afterwards, the doctors told me
that it was really a rolling of the dice
whether I would be permanently damaged mentally
and no longer to function
or whether I would recover fully as I have.
If I hadn't been so fortunate,
I could be a mental vegetable.
(keys clack)
(playful piano music)
I believe that the most important thing is the present.
(majestic piano music)
So I've learned that every moment
is an opportunity to live life
to really feel what it is to be a human,
to have this life experience.
(car rumbles)
Each moment totally unique.
(majestic piano music)