A dark knight into a new day.

Orchestral Debut: Ben Britten's Young person's guide to the orchestra: Bass Drum!

Its been an interesting past few days preparing for this concert. We had a guest conductor from a university in Iowa... Drake? Drake University? to fill in for the event on account of our own maestro having to conduct the Sarasota Opera. Our program was filled with concerto winners of the sort. A Clarinet player doing Mozart A concerto up the butt, a pianist doing Saint Saens, a Euphonium player doing a Spanish gypsy inspired piece by (insert Spanish name here) Cosma, and a violinist playing Tchaikovsky which was reeeally beautiful, bee tee double you.

Anyway, my dark knight began hours before the concert as I was contemplating what it means to be a musician, work my butt off countless hours to prepare for a life of... yes please fill that in. I had a long discussion with my old mentor, Bill. His advice was very positive and made me feel somewhat better about the situation, but I still found myself wondering about the big picture.

Later that night, I'm backstage staring at the piano concerto soloist winner as she's about to go on-stage in her floor length deep purple dress and 6 inch high heels. Her hands were freezing and the look on her face was almost frightening. Again, I asked myself:

"In five minutes this will all be over, and people will clap and go home. Is this what being a performer is all about?"

I spent the rest of the evening contemplating the horrific question. Its the thing musicians fear asking if they ever decide to ask. Even during the beautiful Tchaik concerto, as I felt her expressing and soaking up the orchestra and projecting her soul.

Went out for a drink with my new buddy Carlos, a conducting DMA that began studying with our maestro in Jan. We talked about these things, but I still felt deeply punctured about it. I told him I'd probably wake up the next morning finding my answer and feeling great about life.

I woke up this morning, did my usual 6:30 am routine. Trekked on over to my worthless music theory class, and on the way my Ipod shuffled to an album I hadn't heard in a very long time.

It was music from Yemen, album entitled : The Music of Islam. and in that moment, I realized why I do it. It being music. I just fucking love how it brings people together. Always have, always will. and Ironically, I'm studying one of the only musics that constantly forgets that.

This art helps me realize my potential as a creative human being. I'm living in Kansas to exercise that ability and learn super expression techniques from the best. Ji Hye Jung.

Peace