Eating my Horn Vegetables

A few months ago, I started a new horn student.  She's a sophomore in high school, and very talented. We started lessons in the midst of district and state band auditions (which she made!), and a concerto competition.  Now that some of these events are over with, I told her it was time to go back to more regular etude work.  We're starting with the basics: Kopprasch book 1, Maxime-Alphonse book 2, and the Pottag Preparatory Melodies.  

When I was explaining Kopprasch to my student, I told her that this book was not necessarily for fun, but it's important to her development as a horn player.  I used the conventional analogy of eating that one vegetable that doesn't taste great but you eat it anyway because you know it's good for you.  Then I started thinking about the role of vegetables in my life (this is not a weird sentence if you know me). When I was a kid, I hardly ate any vegetables at all.  Now I'm vegan.  I love vegetables of all kinds!  At the age of 20, I went from cringing at vegetables to eating a diet that consists entirely of plants.  It was a tough transition, but now I can't imagine living any other way.

Like every good American, I also enjoy frying vegetables.  This is a scene from when I lived with 2 veggie friends a few years ago.

For me, the metaphor of Kopprasch to vegetables is significant.  And yes, I'm certainly the only person ever to utter that sentence.  It's my blog and I'll write what I want :)

As I assigned these etudes to my student, and thought about vegetables, I realized that I've never really worked through any of these books myself.  I started tinkering with M-A and Pottag a few months ago, but other than an etude or two, I've never done Kopprasch.  That's right.  I'm an ABD doctoral candidate at a major conservatory, and I've never made it through Kopprasch.

That's pretty silly.

It's not through lack of my teachers' effort that I didn't do Kopprasch.  My undergraduate professor started me with the book, but I found the etudes boring and didn't understand the importance of them at the time, so I just stopped bringing the book to lessons.

Immediately after I assigned my student these etudes, I realized the fault of doing so.  How could I properly teach her if I hadn't done them myself?  As soon as the lesson ended, I opened all three of the books and started from the beginning.  Now, as I play through each Kopprasch etude I think, "I wish I would have done these sooner!"  Sure, maybe I don't have a ton of fun while I'm playing them, but as an educated hornist, I now know exactly the skills that each etude builds, and I'm so grateful to be playing each one.

Perhaps it's faulty to wish I'd done them sooner.  Clearly I didn't have the appreciation for them at the time like I do now, so maybe this is exactly the right time for me to begin.  I'm learning more and more each day that, whether it's eating your greens or practicing your lip trills, it's never too late to get back to the basics of life.  No matter when you start, you'll be better and healthier for it.

Excuses vs. Strength: A Different New Year's Resolution; or, My 2nd Post about Making Excuses

For the past several years, I have subjected my Facebook friends to a lengthy list of New Year's Resolutions.  They always come with descriptions and explanations of purpose (I've never been accused of being concise), but they boil down to the following four things:

1. Get great at the horn

2. Attain some kind of fitness goal

3. Be kinder to myself

4. Learn a new skill

I've experienced varying levels of success and failure in all four areas.  I've begun to feel silly about making the same statements over and over again, though, so I thought briefly about not making any resolutions this year.

A better solution came into my life last week.

I spent the five days before Christmas in a constant state of bliss in Northern Virginia and DC with some of my favorite people on the planet.  The night before I left, I grabbed a drink in Adams Morgan with my longtime friend Jeremiah.  Jeremiah is a phenomenal musician and teacher, and the founder of Harmony Rising: A Music School Online.  He's also a yoga and spinning instructor, and convinced me over an Old Fashioned to come to the spinning class he was teaching the next morning.  I hadn't been to a spinning class since undergrad- which, as I was reminiscing with my good friend Adam, is now longer ago than I care to admit.  Still, I knew Jeremiah would be an amazing instructor, so I dragged myself out of bed Christmas Eve morning and went to class.

I arrived early so Jeremiah could help me set up my bike.  The class began, and we all started pedaling. I felt exhausted after the first 15 minutes.  I began searching for every excuse possible to let myself stop adding resistance and just pedal at a slow pace for the remainder of the class.  It was at that point where Jeremiah- an extremely enthusiastic leader- said the following:

"Are you looking for excuses?  Or, are you looking for strength?  Either way, you'll find what you're looking for."

Ouch, Jeremiah.  That one punched me right in the stomach.  I knew he was addressing the whole class, but I felt like he was reading my mind. And, it worked.  I decided that I didn't care that my thighs were throbbing, that my face was beet red, that I most certainly looked ridiculous trying to keep pace with all of the fit people in the class.  I pushed myself as hard as I could.  I had a major case of jelly legs when the class was over, and it was awesome.  I felt I had already accomplished a great feat by 9:30am, and the rest of the day was mine for the taking.

Jeremiah's words have remained with me since he uttered them a week ago.  They've helped me achieve small victories daily, and have caused a great deal of contemplation.  Completing a spinning class may seem like a trivial accomplishment, but what if I applied the excuses vs. strength rule to all of life's struggles, major and minor?  How much greater would life feel if I persevered instead of lamented?  What if, instead of falling victim to my many excuses, I instead call upon my inner strength to achieve something better?

Can you guess what my new, improved and concise New Year's Resolution is? No?  Okay, I'll tell you...

This year, I resolve to have the wisdom to search for strength instead of excuses.

Happy New Year, friends!  Let's raise our glasses to a healthy and loving existence for all beings everywhere!

Plow Pose and Perseverance

This post has nothing to do with music, education and culture.  This post has everything to do with music, education and culture.

One of my most stereotypical qualities is that I love yoga.  I still consider myself a beginner yogi, and sadly I go through periods where I don't practice very much at all (even though I KNOW that I always feel much better when I practice regularly).  I appreciate many types of yoga, but the style in which I find the most tranquility is Yin Yoga.  Unlike active (or "yang") yoga practices, yin yoga is a passive practice that involves holding each pose for an extended period of time- usually somewhere between three and eight minutes.

The first time I went to a yin class was around this time two years ago, during my last year of doctoral coursework in Cincinnati.  I was making more frequent visits to my favorite studio, World Peace Yoga.  I had no idea what yin yoga was, and only showed up because the class fit into my schedule that day.  I was expecting a "normal" class (whatever that means) full of sun salutations and warrior poses.  I was definitely NOT expecting to hold pigeon pose for 5 minutes on each side.  I remember being very sore at the end of the class, surprised at the difficulty of that 90 minutes of life. Yet, I kept going back for more.

Usually, the final pose preceding shavasana ("corpse pose") was an inversion held for five minutes. With the sole intention of placing your body in a position where the heart is above the head, the inversion could be as simple as laying flat on your back with a yoga block under your sacrum, knees bent and feet on the floor.  It could be shoulder stand.  Or, it could be plow pose: with the head, neck and shoulders remaining on the ground, the rest of the body is inverted so that the toes touch the ground beyond the head.

A recent "selfie" in plow pose.  It's really hard to take a photo of yourself in this pose.  For a better example, look anywhere else on the internet.

The first time I tried plow pose, I felt an intense sensation in my back.  Since the teacher always warned us to never go so deeply into a pose that you feel a sharp or electric pain, I came out of the pose immediately, opting for a milder inversion to complete my practice.  This happened for weeks: I would attempt the pose, feel the intense sensation, and fearfully back out of it.

Like it always does, eventually my stubbornness kicked in.  I decided to try to wait out the discomfort. With each class, I held the pose for a few seconds longer than the last, but the sensation never went away.  However, sitting with the irritation for progressively longer periods allowed me to distinguish the difference between a powerful discomfort and pain.  I was a competitive gymnast in a former life, and suffered a back injury that ended my participation in the sport, so back pain has always sent up a giant red flag in my brain.  I compared the back pain I underwent when I was a gymnast to the feeling I experienced in plow pose, and realized they were not the same. The feeling was strong and unfamiliar, but it was not pain.  It was not sharp and debilitating. It was not harmful.

Once I realized this distinction, I decided that my next class was the class I would remain in plow pose for the full 5 minutes.  Since I theorized the sensation wasn't actually pain and therefore probably not harmful, I knew I could make it.  I turned myself upside down, prepared to face something similar to getting a piercing or tattoo: intense discomfort during the activity, followed by an endorphin-induced high.  To my delight, I didn't have to wait until the pose was over.  After approximately 90 seconds, the distress went away entirely.  For the remainder of the pose, I experienced what I can only assume is bliss.  I felt euphoric, completely at peace, transcendent.  I was the owner of my happiness, and no one could take it away from me.  This became ritual with every plow pose in every yin class for the remainder of my time in Cincinnati: coaxing myself to endure the momentary suffering for the reward of acute joy.

Then I moved to Boston for 9 months.  I went to yoga classes when I could afford them, but never found myself in a yin class.  I fell out of practice.  I forgot about plow pose.

Then I moved to Lexington.  While I've started practicing yoga again since I moved here, there's only one yin class in the entire city, and it happens to be at a time I can't make.

Fortunately, now that I'm back in the same region of the country, life takes me to Cincinnati quite often (...it's possible that I help life along in that mission).  About 3 weeks ago, I was lucky enough to catch a yin class at World Peace Yoga again.  It had been about 16 months since my last yin class, but I remembered why I loved it as soon as I stepped on the mat and prepared for the adventure.  I found myself longing for the end of class to come so I could do plow pose.  To my surprise, however, instead of just craving the feeling of bliss after the torment, I found myself wanting the entire experience: the intense discomfort included.

I've been to 4 yin yoga classes in the last three weeks, and with each class I have the same desire for the pairing of discomfort and pleasure offered by plow pose.  I found this peculiar at first, but I think I'm beginning to understand it now.  I don't think the bliss is possible without the discomfort that precedes it; how would I know it was bliss if I didn't have the opposite by which to compare it?  Or, maybe the second half wouldn't feel so amazing if the first half wasn't so uncomfortable, meaning it wouldn't truly be bliss.

Whatever the reason, I can only hope that plow pose is one of my life's greatest physical metaphors.  May bliss be at the end of every torment.

Music and Memory: For Andrew

I spent the last two days playing with Orchestra Kentucky, sitting in my 4th horn seat.  This is a great regional orchestra in Bowling Green, drawing musicians from Lexington, Louisville, Owensboro, Nashville, and Evansville (and more places, I'm sure).  Among other fun works, last night's performance included Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.  This is the third time I've performed this work in my young musical career, and the second time while sitting in the 4th seat.  There are a lot of great moments in the 4th part; the only unfortunate aspect about it is that there are several movements in a row where only one, two or three horns are needed, eliminating the fourth horn for several minutes of music.  It was during this tacet section that I remembered.

This is the piece my orchestra at CCM was playing when Andrew died.

Andrew Austin Howell was an amazing person, who also happened to be a fantastic horn player.  He has just begun his junior year at CCM when he died in the early hours of Saturday, October 23rd, 2010.  He was 20 years old.  I think about Andrew every day, but it's been a while since I've thought about when the event occurred, and the painful days, weeks and months that followed.  Sitting in the orchestra two days ago, it was like I had turned back the clock almost three years.

I remember the text I got from Stephanie late Saturday morning.  I remember calling all of the graduate studio members, telling them all to sit down first.  I remember everyone gathering at Emily's apartment, including CCM director of wind studies Rod Winther, and Randy Gardner's lovely wife Barbara (Mr. Gardner happened to be in Philadelphia, and was frantically returning back to Cincinnati).  I remember Eric putting on several pots of Highlander Grog from Seven Hills Coffee, and Mr. Winther (a coffee enthusiast) saying it was the best coffee he'd ever tasted.  I remember ordering pizza and making french fries, and joking about how this was appropriate mourning food.  I remember us all taking turns laughing and crying.

I remember Sunday when we all gathered at the Gardner's home.  Anni happened to be in town that weekend, and recent graduate Danielle joined us too.  Usually, convocations at the Gardner's home involved bowls of ice cream and games of cornhole.  This was no such occasion.  We all tried to make it a supportive environment, and a time to share happy stories and fond memories.  We did our best, but the tears still flowed freely.

And then, I remember Monday, when we all had to show up at CCM.  I don't think any of us walked in alone that day.  Professors were extremely lenient with us, understanding if we just couldn't make it through class.  At 4PM, it was time for orchestra.  I remember sitting in the section with Austin, Robert, Jeremy and Eric.  I remember Annunziata's kind words.  I remember the rest of the orchestra's compassionate glances.  I remember Pictures at an Exhibition.

I remember Tuesday morning, when we had studio class for the first time since Andrew died.  I do not envy being Mr. Gardner in this situation.  How on earth do you hold a horn studio class when a member of your studio just fell off of a roof and died?  Not surprisingly, he made a great choice.  We listened to music for an hour.  Arkady Shilkloper, among other artists.  The class ended with an impromptu conga line.  The following hour was a grief counseling session, which the Wind Studies Department was hosting all day during normal rehearsal hours.  After that, Emily, Cecilia, Eric and I decided we couldn't handle the rest of the day at CCM.  We went and got giant burritos (again, appropriate mourning food) from Habañero, brought them back to Cecilia's and my house, opened up the futon, and stayed there for the rest of the day.

For the rest of the year, Emily tagged us in any picture she found of four kittens cuddling on a couch

I remember the vigil Wednesday night.  There was a huge crowd there.  Friends and teachers spoke.  The horn choir played an arrangement of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.  Cecilia played principal, and was rock solid.  I was sitting in the back row between Eric and Brigette.  It was the most difficult and most important performance of which I've ever been a part.  The vigil ended with a recording of Josh Groban's You Raise Me Up, which was one of Andrew's favorite songs.

I remember studio class on Thursday.  Mr. Gardner was brilliant, and decided this day should be his infamous Distraction Class.  It was the funniest one I experienced in my four years at CCM, probably because we were all so in need of a good laugh.

I remember the weeks and months that followed.  I remember having to go and pick people from CCM because they couldn't handle their sadness, and bringing them back to our house for a reprieve.  Our futon stayed open for at least a month, and we gained several temporary roommates.  I remember the night approximately a month later when, alone in my house, my body finally gave in to the pressure of staying strong for my friends; I called my parents, sobbing and shaking.  I remember the group hug on our last day of studio class in December, and the celebratory feeling we all shared for simply making it through the quarter.  I remember the concerts and recitals dedicated to Andrew's memory.  I remember gathering with his family in January to celebrate what would have been his 21st birthday, going to the spot in Bellevue Park where some of his ashes were spread.

Andrew's family and friends on his 21st birthday

I remember one year later, when we held a giant memorial concert.  Corbett Auditorium was filled.  Our horn studio was joined by members of the horn studios from Ohio State University and Indiana University.  Mr. Gardner asked me to represent the horn studio by giving a speech about Andrew.  I don't remember much from the actual moments I was speaking, but after I spoke I remember immediately running to the hallway behind the backstage area, putting my head between my knees.  Emily came and found me to make sure I wasn't barfing.  When I stood up, Mike held on to me and wouldn't let go, noting that he could feel my heart beating through my chest against his body.


I remember two years later.  I had just arrived in Los Angeles a couple of days prior, beginning my brief residency at Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA).  It was my first Andrew anniversary away from my CCM family, and I felt so alone.  Two of my fellow Sistema Fellows, Carlos and Sara, were also in LA with me at this time.  I had spent a grand total of 6 weeks of life with them at this point, but wasn't left with much of a choice but to tell them that I was probably going to have a very bad day.  Luckily for me, this was the beginning of a great friendship among the three of us, and they were wonderful about the whole thing.  I was also fortunate enough to share a phone call with Stephanie and Austin that day, who were also spending their first Andrew anniversary away from CCM.

Now, it's almost three years later.  I still have many of the same feelings I had when it happened.  Sadness. Confusion. Anger. And, happiness.  Happiness that I had Andrew in my life.  Happiness that he brought the CCM community closer together.  Happiness that I am fortunate enough to make the most of my life.  In a cathartic way, I hope that every time I play Pictures at an Exhibition, I will remember that time in my life; for me, every performance of the work will be dedicated to Andrew.

_________________________________________________________________________

"Andrew."

This was how I snapped out of my whirlwind of memories during Sunday's rehearsal of Pictures.

"Andrew."

The conductor had stopped the music to address a member of the orchestra.  His name happened to be Andrew.

Sometimes, the universe does strange things.

Keep it Simple

Last week I had the great opportunity to perform in the horn section of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.  It's always a real treat for me when I get to play with them; this time, the deal was even sweeter because I got to play with my good friend and CCM colleague, Jeremy.  Jeremy and I carpooled from Cincinnati all week, and had a lot of time to catch up.  We had many great conversations about making the most out of life, and living exactly how you want to live.  A subtopic of this conversation involved Jeremy's summer practice routine, which entails getting up at 5:00 every morning.  To a lot of people, waking up at 5am daily is undesirable and may seem impossible. Here's a summary of what Jeremy had to say about it:

"People ask me how I get up at 5 every day.  I say, 'I set my alarm for 5am and then I wake up'.  It's that simple."

This simplicity resonated with me so much.  Like many people, I have a hard time getting up early.  I'm the girl who sets 10 alarms on her phone and ignores every one of them.  Eventually I stumble out of bed just in time to throw on jeans, pour some coffee in a travel mug and walk out the door.  In the moment, it's so easy to make excuses for sleeping in.  I always try to justify it by convincing myself I'll have plenty of time during the day to complete everything I need to.  This is rarely true.  At the end of the day I usually end up being mad at myself for my inability to do the right thing in the morning and just wake up when the alarm tells me to.

Jeremy's simple explanation of how he gets up so early every morning really got me thinking- mostly about how I tend to make simple tasks way more complicated than they need to be.  Getting up early is difficult for me for a number of reasons.  Some are legitimate; some aren't.  Whether the reasons are justifiable or not, I know getting up early will help me live every day exactly how I want.  What if, instead of rationalizing or justifying or making excuses, I just got up whenever my alarm went off?  What if I kept it that simple?  I know that there are more pros than cons of getting up when I intend to.  I'll feel better about myself, and I'll actually have a fighting chance of getting the day's tasks completed.

It's like the old quote- falsely attributed to everyone from Albert Einstein to Mark Twain- about the definition of insanity: "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".  I can't expect to make changes in my life if my daily routine never changes.  If I want the outcome to be different, I have to consciously make new choices.  For starters, I can't expect to live every day like superwoman if I keep ignoring my alarm.

I'm trying something new this week.  I'm going to get up at 6AM every day.  This will allow me plenty of time to get some face time in on the horn before I set foot in the office.  My trial run this morning was successful.  The alarm went off at 6:02, 6:03, 6:05 and 6:08.  Once the last one went off, the excuses crept up.  "You really could just sleep till 6:30."  "But you're SO tired!"  "It's still dark outside..."  Normally, I would have chosen to listen to at least one of those excuses.  Instead, I thought of Jeremy and how he'd been awake for an hour already, and asked myself one question: "How badly do you want it?"

If I want my life to include everything I desire, I have to make changes.  It all comes down to choice.  I could choose to listen to my groggy excuses in the morning, or I could choose to simply set my alarm for 6am and then wake up when it goes off.  When you think about it objectively, the latter is far simpler than coming up with a half-asleep elaborate ruse of justification.

Getting up early is just one of many examples I could use of how I make my life way more complicated than it needs to be.  I hope this is only the beginning of discovering more ways to simplify my life, taking away baggage and living fully and honestly.

Musical Relevance: Part 1

Before I get into the vegan meat of this post, I should say that when I refer to "classical music," I mean in its absolute broadest definition- symphonic, chamber and solo music from all eras, performed on instruments traditionally found in band or orchestra settings.

Now, on with the post!

As a graduation gift, Heath and Virginia presented all 10 fellows with a copy of Arlene Goldbard’s new book, The Culture of Possibility: Art, Artists and the Future.  You can read more about Ms. Goldbard and her publications here.  Thanks, Arlene, for permitting me to use your words as the catalyst for this post!  The fellows had our first exposure to Ms. Goldbard when she spoke via Skype at the symposium/seminario/gathering (affectionately dubbed the “symposinario” by the fellows) we held at the end of March for members of the greater Boston arts and education community.  Her short “provocation” at the event was indeed just that, and though I’m only tens of pages into her book, thus far she is upholding her title of provocateur.  The following quote sparked today’s blog post: 

...our capacity to act is conditioned on the story we tell ourselves about our own predicament and capabilities. ...To even begin to conceive responses worthy of current challenges means removing all barriers to clear sight.  For me, this translates into a simple proposition.  We need to see like the most committed and skilled artists: eyes wide open, taking it all in, turning away from nothing, cultivating empathy and imagination, venturing forth, taking risks, admitting mistakes, persevering.

This brought so many thoughts bursting from my brain that I had to put the book down and start writing.  These musings will (hopefully, if I don’t get lazy) be broken up into a few different posts.  Today’s post will touch on my interpretation of “removing all barriers to clear sight,” and what that has meant in my life as a musician, particularly in the last two-and-a-half years.  

A large barrier came down several years ago when I fully realized the conditions under which I was able to receive my musical education, and that not every child is so lucky to have these resources (you can read about that here, if you're so inclined).  This is how El Sistema entered my life.  Since then, I've placed ample thought and energy into removing access barriers to classical music.  Some people could certainly consider it a barrier in itself that I still focus on classical music.  I've spent all academic year thinking about this, and will undoubtedly continue to think about it for years to come.  While I value other types of music and intend to utilize them as publicly desired, I still believe that classical music does not need to be viewed as a barrier to sight or accessibility.

I grew up in a little town just outside of Winchester, Virginia.  Winchester is a small and historic city in the northernmost part of the state.  Thanks largely to its proximity to DC, the arts scene in Winchester when I was growing up wasn’t nearly as dismal as it is in other communities I’ve seen; but, to say that classical music is relevant to the overall culture of this area would be false.  There was no extracurricular youth band or orchestra for wind players.  Try as I might, I could never find a horn player to be my teacher; I became a horn instructor myself at the age of 15 because of this.  I didn’t know summer music festivals for youth, like Interlochen or Blue Lake, existed until I got to college.  Upon high school graduation, I was the only person in my class who was pursuing music as a career.  Music was relevant in my personal life, but not in the culture of my community.  I chose this path anyway, and there are a number of other people from my hometown who have gone on to pursue successful careers in music education, performance and entrepreneurship.

Additionally, I am the only professional musician in my extended family, which is quite large.  My mom and sister, and a few of my aunts, uncles and cousins participated in band or orchestra growing up, but none of them possessed the same passion for it that I did.  There was no great musical influence or culture in my family.  Yet here I am.

My story is not unique, as I discovered most intimately when I arrived at CCM for grad school.  One of my favorite things about CCM is that it’s filled with people who grew up in a similar fashion as I, yet still ended up in the field of music performance.  I’m sure this is not unique to CCM, but I’m using it as an example because it’s my personal point of reference.  Was classical music relevant in our childhood?  Personally, sure; but culturally, probably not.  Evidently, it didn’t matter, because we were still deeply impacted by music to the point that we chose to do something out of cultural context with our lives.

Dead European composers could easily mean nothing to me, yet my love for classical music is one of the driving forces in my life.  Additionally, being a classical musician has opened my eyes to so many other types of music.  I’ve performed with everything from jazz ensembles to polka bands to civil war era brass bands.

Shameless proof of the civil war era brass band gig

Don’t get me wrong- I understand that classical music is not for everybody, and it does not have the power to affect everyone in the way it has affected me.  That’s totally fine.  There are certain kinds of music that I will never like, so I don't expect everyone to join me on the classical music train.  I am also fully aware, now more than ever, that I fit two of this country’s primary classical-music-lover stereotypes: I’m white and highly educated.  Furthermore, I know that there are far more extreme scenarios than mine of classical music not being encompassed in a person's culture.  Regardless, it's still fair for me to say that classical music was not relevant in my culture growing up.  Now it’s the number 1 component of my culture, and I can’t imagine life any other way.

Call it a barrier of sight if you wish, but even after countless hours of analysis, I still don't believe classical music as an entity needs to be a cultural barrier.  This certainly doesn’t change the way classical music is perceived by society as a whole, or the fact that there are institutional and societal barriers to accessing classical music.  What to do about this will (again- hopefully, if I don't get lazy) be the topic for my next post: “taking it all in, turning away from nothing, cultivating empathy and imagination, venturing forth, taking risks, admitting mistakes, persevering.”

Bluegrass on the Horn

I'm completing this post from a coffee house in Lexington, KY.  I have accepted a position as the program director for North Limestone MusicWorks, which is the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestra's new El Sistema - inspired initiative.  I could not be more excited!

About 2 weeks ago, the Sistema Fellows graduated from NEC.  It was a small, intimate ceremony with some family members and lots of friends in attendance.

Post Graduation: The fellows, Heath, Virginia, Tony and Leslie

Sara, Carlos and me after the ceremony

The ceremony opened with encouraging words and anecdotes related to our class from NEC president Tony Woodcock.  Then, each fellow had the floor for a few minutes.  Everyone spoke; some used media; some played music.  I bet you can guess my choice.

I did, of course, say a few words before I played my horn.  I spoke of the theme of firsts, and the number 1, in my young sistema life.  I had 1 year with 9 amazing fellows.  I experienced my first trip to a Latin American country.  I taught music lessons with a language barrier for the first time.  I'm about to move to Lexington to help start Kentucky's first El Sistema - inspired program.  Following this theme, and furthering my exploration of musical relevance, my short commencement performance was another first:

I played bluegrass music on my horn.

As this was my first foray into bluegrass, I kept things simple.  I actually started with a shape note hymn, and then bridged into the melody of Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky."  It was nothing outstanding, but for me it accurately represented my year of experimenting in performance; I used my 5 minutes of graduation spotlight as a testing ground for musical courage.

This was the second time that I've performed at a fellowship event.  Several hours after graduation, I was having a discussion with my friend and fellow Xóchitl.  She said something to me that went kind of like this: "You're much more comfortable when you're talking with a horn in your hands.  You're more laid back.  You make jokes."

Similarly, when I returned to Cincinnati last month to give my lecture-recital, I saw many friends from the horn studio whom I hadn't seen since my move to Boston.  I received one comment over and over again: "Rachel, you look so much happier!"

These observations pointed out things that I hadn't consciously noticed, but the words also didn't surprise me.  While I'm still figuring out the balance in my life (and probably will be for many years to come), these comments serve as proof that performance, education and inclusion are necessary elements of my career; I cannot relinquish any of the three.

I still have a lot to figure out, but I'm enjoying the musical journey.  I feel strongly that I'm in the right place to continue to learn and grow as a musician, performer, educator, and leader.  I can't wait to spread the El Sistema love to Lexington!