Music for the win!

Today I am reminded of the music. You know, the actual thing that I love and do for a living. I’m at our rehearsal for our student concerts and the orchestra is rehearsing a piece of music I have been asking to play pretty much since I’ve worked here. And this week they are playing it! I’m sitting in the back, running the slide show as I will be all week. Suddenly I’m smiling, clapping my hands, conducting, bouncing, and doing whatever else one does when the music hits you just right.

THIS is what is important to me. This experience of embracing the music that some random composer wrote ages ago. He didn’t write it for me but it lights me up. Whether the slides get changed right away, or the students get in and out smoothly, or the musicians get the snacks they wanted, or everything goes absolutely perfectly…the music is what I want to remember. THAT is worth my time. The rest can go hang itself.

I don’t really write a lot about my organization specifically. Not because I’m not proud of what we do and who we are, but because it is too easy to misconstrue something online and I don’t want to cast any shade on the great work we do day in and out. But last week was an exception. These are pictures from our week of Youth Concerts.

Shout out to all of our people: musicians, staff, volunteers, auditorium staff. Nothing like getting almost 11,000 people in and out of a building for 6 daytime concerts between the hours of 10 and 1, M-W! Yes, it is a circus. Yes, we were overworked. But wow, did we deliver!

Then, as feedback comes in from our schools, we get to hear the impact this event has on them. For many students, this is the first time they have seen a symphony orchestra live. We get students from all over the region, 109 schools and 9 counties. And yes, this concert is FREE for them.

Are there complications? Yes. Is it a difficult week? Yes. Is there a point in the middle where you wonder “what the heck am I doing” and maybe “seriously, should I go work for Costco?” Yes.

But, in the end, it is all worth it.

I’m also proud to say that during Women’s History Month we had a female conductor and programmed two works by living female composers on this concert. And that wasn’t planned just for this month. We just did it because it was the best choice for the concert.

One of my best moments was an email we received after the concert from a school counselor. She had been chatting with a student who had been at the concert. That student mentioned how interesting and calming it had been and was looking for ways to find the music on Spotify or somewhere so they could listen and relax some more. THIS is winning at its finest.

The little things you do in the course of your day can have a huge impact. If we focus on those things, the rest will fade a bit. The important things will win. We don’t have to change the world. We can change our little corner.