My name is Peter Duarte, I was born on October 27, 1984 in Kendall, a suburb of Miami, Florida in southwest Miami-Dade County. My parents Pedro and Rosa Duarte are both native of Cuba. My mother was born in the country's capital and immigrated to Newjersey at the age of eight. Three years later, most of her family moved to miami where she has lived most of her life. My father was born in Pinal del rio, a small city in south central Cuba. He immigrated along with his family to miami in his late twenties.
I have two brothers; Danny who is twenty seven and Andy who is thirteen. Daniel is married to an auspicious wife, Gaby. He is a project manager for several healthcare software solutions. He also owns his own company Go!Health inc. and is currently a lotus notes developer for Burger King Corporation.
I was born two weeks early around the mid day hour at baptist hospital. I was primarily taken care by my grandma Aida and her sister Eva. At the age of four I began to attend the Creative Learning Center. Life was easy, at the play ground for half the day and drawing pictures the other half. Two years later I attended Calusa Elementary School. At the age of 8 I began to take piano lessons. Enamored by a trombone trio the performed at my school, I picked up the trombone at the age of 10. Frustrated with the size of the horn and my inability too extend my arm to capture the full range of the instrument, I switched over to the trumpet a year later; it also helped that my older brother Danny had begun playing trumpet when he entered middle school.
I later attended Arvida middle school and Miami Killian senior High School. I enjoyed and excelled in the math and sceinces. My electives I took throughout my grade school tenure were Cocnert Band and Jazz Band. Music provided a numeruous amount of life experience. Along with the leadership and collaboration needed to succesfully function as an ensemble, we were able to travel around the country. We attended various conferences and competitions in the state of Florida as well as Washington D.C., Atlanta, Indianapolis, and Bloomington.
After performing well on the SATs and sustaining a GPA, I decided to attend the University of Florida. The University of Florida gave me the opportunity to pursue both of my interests, music and the biological sciences. I choose the degre "Music in Combination with Bbehavioral Neurobiology." I found myself interested in the work of one of my very first neurobiology professors, Dr. Darragh Devine, and entered his lab to pursue my research interests. On the other hand, I was pursuing a trumpet performance degree. I studied priately with the University's Professor of Trumpet, Dr. joyce Davis. I was also involved with various ensembles such as the Symphonic Band, Windsymphony, Orchestra, Jazz Band, pit orchestra, Brass Quintets, Trumpet ensembles, and various athletic bands. Fortunately, I was given the opportunity to perform with World class artists and attend conferences such as WASBE. My musical endevours have taken my to Singapore, Hongkong, Greece, and Switzerland. I am currently in my final year at the University of Florida and am applying for medical school.