Feature Photo By: Jessie Robertson – Ahlyna (Ziggy) Green passionately plays the ukulele in her 7th period class, school of rock.

“Music motivates me to get up in the morning,” said junior Ahlyna (Ziggy) Green.

Here at Rangeview High School, students have many different options to choose from in the performing arts department; some of these choices include: choir, theatre, school of rock, and band.

According to childtrends, a survey in 2013 showed that only approximately 36.2% of high school students are involved in performing arts, and Green is one of them.

Green is involved in the school of rock/modern band class, and was also involved in the guitar class last year. Many students around her agree that they are quite passionate about music, and truly enjoy surrounding themselves in it.

“We met in school of rock and I feel like I have always known her,” said junior Pearl Bilson.

Last year, Green was featured in a Tiny Classroom Concert performance on the Raider Review.

Green held a solo performance at Red Rocks at the beginning of this year. She also performed with small groups on an Earth Day performance, a governor’s advisor performance, and a performance for the associates.

But, her very first performance was the governor’s performance.

Green said, “[During] my first performance, I was extremely nervous. The song, for me, was a time to express something I was proud of: my sexuality.”

Overall, Green described these events as very fun and great experiences to have, and credits the reason for her gaining so much confidence to perform to guitar class.

“Ziggy is a student I have gotten to know in the past two years in my music classes,” said musical teacher Mr. Gregory. “Ziggy was in guitar class one day as a beginning guitarist and then showed up in the next class as an advanced performer and I’m like, ‘what are you doing?’ And then Ziggy started singing and I’m like, ‘okay we’ll teach you how to play guitar and you can be an advanced singer.’”

Green noted that her favorite performance was the one that took place at Red Rocks, where she performed with Isaac Slade of The Frays.

“I got to see him perform a song with so much passion and feeling,” Green said. “I learned a lot more about how to improve my technique and get in touch with the music again that night.”

A lot of students, including Green, consider music to be very important to them, and see it as a way to express themselves. In the future, Green plans to be in a band and perform to further express her feelings.