The Maestro

Rehearsal
Originally uploaded by The Humanihilsocialist

I decided long ago that I could not pursue music as a career. I knew it would kill the magic and meaning that it had held throughout my grade and high school years.

This man, the maestro, has made very clear that I made the right decision.

I've been fortunate to have won a seat in the Butler Symphony Orchestra, even playing principal flute last spring. It was in this orchestra that I was pushed into a new dedication. I was led here by the unyielding dedication of this man, whose devotion to the experiential (as opposed to professional) aspects of performance knows no ends.

He says, ad nauseum, that in the rehearsal room we check everything at the door. Papers and jobs and deadlines fill the halls outside the room. In there, we become organismic as 80 people literally breathing together; our concentration becomes nearly universal as we are entranced by the beats and "gestures" of the work at hand.

In this space, under the charismatic direction and belligerence of the maestro, music is brought into a communal life under the topsy-turvy gaze of liminality.