Madison Ingram likes to play the show-off pieces.
Her favorite is Felix Mendelssohn’s 15-minute violin concerto, an incredibly technical piece of music. It’s the song that won her the Tulsa Youth Symphony’s concerto competition at 16.
“They have a melody and passage that goes throughout the song,” Ingram said. “There’s a story going on and the way it works with accompaniment, whether piano or the orchestra, it’s so pretty.”
Her resume goes on. As a senior at Edison High School, she’s the concertmaster, winner of the OKCPhil young musician competition and 2025 guest artist at the philharmonic’s Maestro’s Ball. Since picking up the violin at age 5, Ingram has spent countless hours practicing every day.
But she has other goals for her life, too. Next year, she’ll study medicine.
“I’ve always liked violin, but it’s more so been a hobby on the side that I do. I still take it very seriously, and it comes into a lot of my life,” Ingram said. “But I’ve always really been a lot more passionate for medicine. I’ve always wanted to help people.”
She’s wrapping up five Advanced Placement classes at Edison this year. The tests are stressful, yes, but Ingram enjoys studying for classes like anatomy and biology. Once you’ve memorized a Mendelssohn concerto, she says, you become pretty proficient at repeating the information you read.
“I’ve just always seen myself being a doctor,” Ingram said. “I’ve known … since I could ever think that I was just going to be a doctor.”
She’s doing it all with Stargardt disease, a rare inherited disease that causes central vision loss in kids and young adults.
Ingram memorizes her sheet music and completes assignments with the help of technology. She uses an iPad to enlarge text while in school and projects her music onto a huge television at home to practice.
During her junior year, Ingram’s parents, Barry and Yoriko, bought her a pair of specialty eyeglasses called the Eyedaptic Eye5. They capture her surroundings and zoom in or change the contrast.
“I don’t give up, I’m really dedicated and there are times when I am a little sad about it. There’s stuff that I can’t do,” Ingram said. “But I think that’s totally fine because there’s a bunch of stuff that I can do, and if it’s hard, then there’s ways to overcome it.”
Her diagnosis does not impede her natural abilities as a musician, said Gregory Lee, Ingram’s private instructor. Lee formerly taught at the University of Oklahoma before returning home to Australia in 2023. Ingram first auditioned for Lee in middle school. She is now the only student he still works with in the U.S.
“It has only improved since then,” Lee said. “Things come very easily to her, I can tell she loves music.”
Ingram’s mom works with her in lessons, but her inherent sense of pitch and memory is evident. When Lee calls out an area to change — a bar in the music, a dynamic or the way she holds her bow — she remembers exactly where to go in the piece, even with limited vision.
“She’s just a very talented student,” said Lee.
Ingram’s choice between Baylor University and the University of Oklahoma, she says, will be determined in part by the accommodations each campus can provide.
“I am a little bit intimidated by it just because I’ve never gone to college. I don’t know, necessarily, exactly what my accommodation needs to be,” she said. “But I do believe that as long as I just communicate it and I’m really specific with what I need, that there would be people to help me.”
She may minor in music while in college or join a quartet. Ingram plans to keep her private lessons with Lee and hopes to continue performing.
“Music is a very narrow career path, and you can love it but choose to do something else for a living,” Lee said. “Even if she does take a break or decides not to do it now and come back to it, I hope it’ll always be part of her life.”
Ingram graduates as saludictorian at 7:30 p.m. May 22 at the Mabee Center at Oral Roberts University, 7777 S. Lewis Ave.
She’ll cross the stage thinking of her parents.
“They do a lot for me, throughout all my high school, being there for my music passion,” she said. “I’ll be walking across the stage thinking how grateful I am for them.”
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