It has been a crazy month. On January 26th my mom died after a long struggle with dementia. The following weeks were taken up with arranging details of her memorial, going through thousands and thousands of pages of saved documents – some of which were important, most of which were not – reminiscing with my sister and my mom’s caregiver, and generally being exhausted. When we got back home after nearly three weeks away, it felt like we’d been on the worst vacation ever.
Slowly, I got back into the swing of things at work and teaching. When I’d gotten the news of my mom’s passing, I went into a panic about the upcoming playing obligations that I had over those next few weeks. The Oregon Symphony was very flexible and understanding with me taking leave to deal with the estate. Similarly, Third Angle and the University of Wyoming were very accommodating to my cancellations. The family does indeed come first.
One gig that I really wanted to try to keep was playing the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with my dear friend and former OSO and Ethos Quartet colleague, violinist Denise Dillenbeck. I know the piece quite well and know Denise’s playing equally well, so even though rehearsal and practice time was going to be at a premium, my thought was that I could make it happen without making a fool of myself. So, the concert is coming up this Sunday, March 5th at 4 pm. It features the wonderful young musicians of the Student Orchestras of Greater Olympia Conservatory Orchestra, and I’m greatly looking forward to it. I’m dedicating my performance to my mom. I think she’d like that a lot.
https://youtu.be/Dj7AICfpQaU
Here’s me playing the opening viola solo line from the second movement. This movement is one of the greatest things written for stringed instruments. It’s essentially an instrumental opera, a love duet, I’d like to think. See that cool shirt I’m wearing? That is a prized memento of Portland’s great classical radio station (of which I’m a board member) AllClassical Portland, which just happens to be the No. 1 classical radio station in America*! Help keep a great thing going strong, and give what you can by clicking here.
*#1 SHARE OF ALL NON-COMMERCIAL CLASSICAL RADIO STATIONS IN THE TOP 45 PPM MARKETS (Nielsen Stations) – Nielsen Audio PPM Market/January 2017