High School Orchestra as a Springboard for Musical Inspiration

I must say that as of late inspiration has been a little hard to come by and I've been in a bit of a rut. I'm going to put part of the blame on the fact that I spent the greater part of last week getting over strep throat (a torture I have now suffered twice in one year) but I realized that the other part of the blame must be put on the lack of live music in my life at the moment. Now part of this does have to do with being home in Detroit but in reality the majority of the reason for me not attending concerts is that I've been so focused on the auditions I've been taking and I am not really making enough money to shell out even $40/$50 a week to see a performance or two. In other words, it's my own fault. This past Tuesday, however, I broke it up a bit and attended my friend Matt's high school orchestra concert and let me tell you that the inspiration has been flowing this week!

Matt is the new Director of Orchestras at North Farmington High School here in grand 'ole Michigan and he had invited me to his first concert to get my opinion on how his groups sounded and just to generally support his new job appointment. Now, some musicians would think that going to a high school concert would be absolute torture but I must admit that they always excite me! I have such fond memories of my time in the band at Roosevelt High School growing up and also of my time with the Detroit Civic Youth Ensembles and seeing a group of young people on stage playing and making music together always reminds me of how much fun my friends (most of whom are not professional musicians) and I would have. Getting to school early just to hang out, gossiping about that one clarinet player who was secretly dating the last chair trombonist, spending every waking moment we could together after school and the list goes on. Seeing Matt's students building those kinds of bonds through performance on stage at his concert was wonderful and on top of it all they sounded great!

Matt and I circa 2010

Matt brought up a good point at the concert that I would like to leave you all with. The reason to fight for the continuation of music in the public school system is because the goal of these ensembles is not necessarily to produce the next Yo-Yo Ma or Emanuel Pahud but to encourage the development of well rounded and generally good hearted individuals. Too often we take for granted what these teachers and students are banding together to create within their classrooms and within each other. I encourage you to support your local public school music program. Go see a concert or help with a fundraiser. Many of those kids will thrive in a musical environment where they feel creatively able to come out of their shells and grow into stunning individuals and the idea that this could be taken away is heartbreaking to me.

P.S. After taking 5 auditions in under 2 months I decided to meet up with my friend Heather for some well needed relaxation and mimosa-filled brunching...the picture below is accurate when describing us after 10 min of having our food in front of us: