I learned a great deal about music and teaching that year. I also learned quite a lot about generosity of spirit.
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Essay
Just Do It.
There was an undeniable electricity in that rehearsal that just crackled between the students. You could feel it, and they certainly felt it too. In fact, they all broke into spontaneous applause afterwards for themselves, for the work, and for that run-through.
…that more than any other skill is the one that I hope to teach students: not how to avoid failure, but how to learn from it and grow stronger because of it. The number one way to be resilient in music is to not simply wait for the proverbial phone to ring. Instead, create your own opportunities, and write yourself into your projects.
…a particularly pernicious pattern of argumentation that I want to identify, debate, and debunk. It is the argument that consciously selecting music with the aim of increasing equity, inclusion, and diversity in classical music makes it less likely that the performer will program “the best music,” the music of highest artistic integrity, because they are now selecting for an arbitrary trait rather than solely based on the musical merits.
Here’s what’s wrong with that:
I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. Ted Hansen. During my tenure as an undergraduate at Texas A&M University-Commerce, I took every class he taught (something I probably can't say about any other professor in my training). As I reflect on those courses, I am struck by the way in which every class was so uniquely organized and tailored to the students and to the topic at hand. No two were alike.
Boring speaks to craft. It speaks to craftsmanship. It speaks to long, laborious, often repetitive tasks that have great payoff, if only the craftsman will apply the time and diligence to see the project through to the end.
In October 2017, I had the privilege of giving a TED Talk and leading Symphony Number One in a performance at TEDxMidAtlantic 2017 in Washington, DC. My talk was titled Classical Music is Boring. (Turns out, there's more to "boring" than meets the eye!)