When Durango High School student Nick Wilbur was 2 years old, his parents took him along to a fiddling competition in Mancos. There, the toddler took an unusual, almost rabid interest in the music.

“He just sat rapt at the feet of those players,” his mother, Sue Kraus, said.

From that moment on, Nick began begging his parents for a violin of his own.

At first, Sue Kraus said, she and her husband, Chris Wilbur, figured it was a child’s passing fancy, a phase that would fade once something else captured Nick’s attention.

Boy, they were wrong about that.

In the 13 years since he first set eyes on a fiddle, Nick has become an accomplished and devoted viola and violin player who also plays the piano, bassoon and trombone. Along with performing in the San Juan Symphony Youth Orchestra, Nick plays in the high school band, orchestra and marching band, takes private lessons and spends much of his free time playing or composing music. Last year, he spent three weeks at the illustrious Eastman School of Music for a pre-college program. The 15-year-old prefers music that is at least 200 years old.

“His whole life has been music,” Kraus said.

This summer, while many of his peers will be whiling away the days outside, Nick is heading to Washington, D.C., to participate in a prestigious youth symphony program. He has won a fellowship to take part in the John F. Kennedy Center/National Symphony Orchestra National Trustees Summer Music Institute. The program will afford him the opportunity to take individual lessons with National Symphony Orchestra musicians, take master classes and conducting courses alongside other bright young musicians and perform in public concerts on The Kennedy Center stage. He leaves June 30.

Nick, a self-possessed young man, tempers his excitement about the program.

“I think it’ll be amazing,” he said, “but I haven’t done it yet. To some extent, it’s a mystery what’s going to happen.”

Winning the fellowship came as a huge surprise to Wilbur’s family. The program accepts only about 70 students ages 15 to 20 from around the country, and since he is on the bottom of the age spectrum (he was old enough by only 6 days), it seemed like the odds were long. In fact, Nick auditioned more for the practice than anything.

“This was such a long shot,” his mother said. “We didn’t even schedule it in our summer because we didn’t think it would happen ... We just did it as a practice audition.”

But after sending in the requisite video clips and materials, the family received an email that Nick was heading to the capital.

“It was one of those moments when you can’t tell if it’s a dream,” Nick said. “I didn’t think in a million years that I was actually going to make it in.”

Nick will spend the next couple weeks learning pieces and practicing to prepare for the program. Which isn’t much different than his normal routine.

He got his first violin at age 4, and started getting serious about lessons in third grade under the guidance of instructor Matthew Moon. By the time he reached middle school, he had outpaced many of his peers so much that school orchestra instructors worried he would be bored, his mom said. That’s when he took up the viola – a slightly larger instrument with a deeper sound. The idea was it would give him a new challenge.

As he learned his new instrument, he began to favor its richer, fuller sound, and he discovered its big advantage: since fewer people play the viola than violin, viola players are more in demand in orchestras.

In sixth grade, Nick began playing in the Music in the Mountains summer conservatory program. Through the Strut Your Stuff concert, he caught the eye of Fort Lewis College music instructor Kasia Sokol-Borup, who took him under her wing. After she left, Nick began studying under Nathan Lambert, who replaced her at the college.

Lambert, who also is the music director of the San Juan Symphony Youth Orchestra, said he could see immediately that Nick had a great deal of raw talent and a musical maturity that was rare for his age.

“He was just overflowing with talent,” Lambert said. “I knew he was a special student.”

Lambert has been working with Nick since to refine his playing, watching him grow ever more proficient.

“He’s a dedicated student, a special player,” Lambert said. “He’s doing the right thing by applying to some of these programs. I’ve been just honored to be his teacher the past three years.”

Kraus said Nick has been afforded incredible opportunities in Durango.

“The ability to live in a little tiny place like this and get the opportunities that he’s gotten ... we’re so grateful,” she said.

But much of what has landed Nick where he is is his passion and drive. His mom says he is so musical that as a child, if he went a day or two without practicing, he “would start to leak music,” humming or whistling almost involuntarily to get it out. She has a harder time forcing him to stop playing music to join the family for dinner than getting him to practice.

“It’s so unusual to know who you are at such a young age and know what you want to be,” Kraus said.

kklingsporn@durangoherald.com