ASKED when her love affair with the violin started, 17-year-old Emily Leung quotes Jane Austen.

“I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun,” she recites by heart from Pride and Prejudice.

The Nedlands teen first picked up a violin at age seven—quite late compared to most well-known violinists, she concedes.

A decade on, Leung is about to perform in her first solo show with the Fremantle Chamber Orchestra.

She will play one of the most-loved violin concertos, the Mendelssohn.

“The opening is anxious and disturbed, but then it fades into this glorious second movement,” she says. “The end is a big smile or laugh. It’s so virtuosic and profound.”

• Violinist Emily Leung’s first solo performance with the Fremantle Chamber Orchestram will be this weekend. Photo supplied | Nik Babic

Leung is spending her gap year learning French and German and will travel through Europe to meet prospective music teachers over seven weeks in July/August.

Her long to-do list includes visiting professor Mauricio Fuks at France’s Ferme De Villefavard and violinist So-Ock Kim at the Cambridge International String Academy.

Leung’s mentors Hans Hug, the founder of Fremantle’s chamber orchestra, and Swiss maestro Rudolf Koelman say the teenager has an illustrious music career ahead of her.

Leung will perform with the FCO at Perth’s Wesley Church at 3pm Saturday, June 6, and the following day, the same time, at Fremantle Town Hall.

The shows will be conducted by FCO’s Christopher van Tuinen. Tickets are from $20 and can be bought at the door or online at ticketek.com.au.

Disclaimer: The Fremantle Herald is a sponsor of the Fremantle Chamber Orchestra.