From high jazzy runs to somber funeral melodies to beautiful solos projecting across a football field, if you go to a Timpview musical event, you’re likely to catch a flash of ginger hair behind a silver trumpet.

Chloe Peterson is a powerful force in the music program, playing first trumpet in the Advanced Jazz Band, Chamber Orchestra, and Marching Band. She began playing trumpet in sixth grade at Edgemont Elementary School, still going strong now, six years later.

“I chose to focus on trumpet because my dad played and he still had his trumpet from high school laying around. My dad’s side of the family is the more musical side and he’s definitely one of my biggest inspirations musically,” Peterson says.

When Peterson got to Timpview she was made first chair in the Symphonic Band, which only made her want to play more. “If I’m being honest, I felt a little competitive,” she says. “My fellow trumpets were all competing for first chair but I was determined to keep it.” Her hard work paid off during her sophomore year when she was placed in the top music groups in the school.

Peterson is also one of the few students in the Marching band to have marched all four of her years, participating in shows Cognitive Dissonance, Phasis Lunae, Shift, and A Prayer for My Child. She was made trumpet section leader this year and given a solo in the first movement, standing on a podium she was the first person to play a note in the show while the rest of the band stood frozen in a circle below her.

Chloe doesn’t just play music to check off a required credit or to pad her college application, she plays music because it flows through her veins, it’s what she’s made of. “I just love music and how it moves people,” Peterson says. “I love it when people dance together and sing together and get along together and just love each other. I love how amazing humans are and how different everyone is. It’s so interesting to know how everyone has different stories that no one even knows about and that’s what makes us interesting, we have so much depth.”

Music has helped her see the beauty in everyone and everything, living her life with the standard that she will never hold a grudge against someone because we never truly know their story. “And besides” she says, “Doesn’t holding a grudge hurt you more than it hurts them?” Her thoughtful ideals bleed into everyone around her, helping to make the music program a kinder place.

“I want to tell younger musicians that you don’t have to be like every other musician,” Peterson says. “You have your own flare that no other musician can replicate and you will always have a style of playing that you resonate best with and that’s okay.”

As her high school career comes to an end, Peterson looks towards the future. She plans to work and participate in Drum Corps, playing trumpet of course, before serving an LDS mission, going to school for instrument design and construction, and traveling the country in a renovated school bus. Even if she doesn’t join a collegiate or professional group, Chloe plans to always keep music in her life.

When asked what final thoughts she wants to leave people with, Peterson shared, “I want people to know that life doesn’t have to be all about politics or fame or money or appearances or that job. It’s about relationships and appreciating little things and pursuing the things you love. Remember that God loves you and it’s our job to love one another.”

Chloe Peterson’s beautiful heart and soul is evident to everyone who’s met her and will continue to be evident long after she’s gone as the younger musicians she mentored grow and begin impacting the lives of others on their own.