A Musical Weekend

So this weekend was the final orchestra concert for the Cincinnati Community Orchestra for the season... The concert rocked for so many reasons. The pieces we played were awesome, but it there were two happenings that reminded me of why I still play the violin 24 years later. First, Tom Sturgis and his fiance Meghan attended... It was great hearing their impressions, as this was the first symphony they've gone to.

The second part of it was our concertmaster was retiring and leaving to move to Texas. Of course, she was great, always started every rehearsal off with a joke (her latest one was top 10 reasons why golf is better than sex), but the best part was after the concert. We all went to the conductor's house for an after-party, and I got a chance to talk to her along with my stand partner, who happened to be one of her students growing up. I asked her if the music program was doing OK in the schools, because I feel strongly about how being a part of an orchestra directly linked to developing my skills as a Chemical Engineer. It's taught me about leadership and teamwork, i.e. learning to take control if you have the melody, and learning to be a beautiful harmony when you don't. It's taught me how to think with both sides of my brain (the left logical side and the right "feeling" side), i.e. seeing if something feels right along with being logically right. She said seeing people who have other jobs still want to play, along with how music has helped them be a better engineer or other profession, is one of the most fulfilling things of being a music teacher.

One of the things on my to do list was to write up how playing in an orchestra has developed all those "interview" skills (i.e. teamwork, leadership) that companies are looking for, and send it out to school music programs to be put on file so if they ever are in jeopardy of being cut, they can pull it out and ask what other class can teach all of those things that can make someone successful.