You Never Know

After an orchestra rehearsal yesterday morning, I found myself in a lengthy parking-garage conversation about music with a young man who had recently decided to augment his musical life as a freelancer and teacher by doing music-related things involving technology.

I really enjoy being able to talk with younger musicians (people younger than my own kids, even), and find myself deeply impressed at how capable, enthusiastic, and dedicated so many of them are to the this activity that we pass, torch-like, from one generation to the next. When we get the opportunity to make music together, the result is often, as in the concert last night, a big emotional and artistic bonfire, fueled by a lot of attention and concentration. It seems that as an orchestral musician, age really doesn't matter. And at sixty-two I still have a lot to talk about with people thirty or forty years younger than I am. I also learn a great deal from sitting with truly capable young stand partners, some, in the case of this concert, with remarkable bow arms.

At any rate, I mentioned at some point that I wrote music. My new friend asked me what my last name was, wondering if he had ever heard of me. I told him that he probably hadn't, but when I mentioned my name there was a moment of recognition. He reached in his bag, took out a notebook of orchestra music that he was helping a student with, and produced the bass part of "High Speed Rail," a piece I wrote about ten years ago.