A Unforgettable Life Experience.

How do you sum up something that you can not explain in just simple words? This trip has honestly changed my life as a musician and had taught me to love and appreciate every art form. Before this trip, I had never been to an opera, ballet, and this was only my second professional orchestral experience in my life. The level of music I heard is something that I will never forget and hope that I am able to take what I have learned and take it and apply it one day when I am teaching music students. Music is just not about perfection and playing everything completely right in a concert it is about been able to persued your audience into feeling the emotion of the piece and helping them better understand why we play the music that we play. And that is exactly what I got out of every performance on this trip. The best examples of that would be Mahler's 6th that we heard the Berlin Philharmonic perform the Vienna Symphoniker Orchestra, Les Vents Fraçais / Kodáy String and Le Nozze di Figaro. In every since one of these performances, I either cried of almost cried due to how amazing the performances where. And it was not just because everything was done perfectly but because you could hear and see the human aspect of the music they were performing. 

 

One of the things that I would like to bring back from this experience to PLU would be the fact of congratulating members of our ensemble after concerts. To me, I feel that we become these robots when performing music that we forget that we also have to add the human aspect to our performances. I think one of the best things that I saw was that after ever performance each player or singer would go around the ensemble or performers and give them a hug or a handshake and say a great job or thank you. I believe that if this where to be instilled into our ensembles that we would have one, a better relationship with each other and also have a stronger bond within the ensemble and we would all want to work together to ensure that each individual is recognized for their own hard work and it would also show that a valuable member of the ensemble. Two it would show the audience that we aren't robots that just perform and get off the stage because we are just done and want to go home. It the same concept as when people start putting away their music as soon as a concert is done without even acknowledging the audience. 

 

I am sure to thank also for the fact that I got to spend time with some amazing friends and had the chance to build a better relationship with them. Yes, we got mad at each other everyone in a while but as DMA said that would happen at least once on this trip. I am great full to have been able to spend so much time with you all and thank you for the amazing memories. You guess are awesome and I cannot wait to see what the rest of the year has in store for us. #core4 

 Thank you, Vienna, Prague, Leipzig, Berlin and Salzburg for been our amazing home for the past month. I can not wait until I return to each one of these places. It still amazes me every time that I do something amazing that it is through music. As John Denver once said "Music does bring people together. It allows us to experience the same emotions. People everywhere are the same in heart and spirit. No matter what language we speak, what color we are, the form of our politics or the expression of our love and our faith, music proves: We are the same." again thank you to Dr. Powell and Dr. Brown for this amazing experience. Until we meet again in Europe!!❤️ #lutesaway #lutesout #musicstrong