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So much has happened since my last blog. We performed all of our chamber music, on stage, on a boat and in a garden and we’ve begun our full orchestra rehearsals with Jacques Lacombe.
It feels great to be in an orchestra again after about 3 months without. Over the past few years, I’ve come to the realization that playing classical percussion (especially of the orchestral variety) can be extremely addictive. The phenomenon could be explained physiologically, since percussion often involves a lot of movement, adrenaline, and endorphins. Who wouldn’t get a thrill out of hitting a bunch of noisy things? But does that make me an adrenaline junkie?
I do crave that wonderful after-concert feeling that floods in as soon as the last chords sound. And I do wake up early for a run every second morning, whether or not I could use the sleep. I remember the feeling after I completed my first race, running 8km in 42 minutes. Exhilarated, exalted, adrenaline and endorphins coursing through my blood, I desperately wanted to hold onto the feeling for as long as possible.
The feeling is similar after a great concert. One of my most memorable moments is of finishing Schostakovich’s 10th symphony with l’Orchestre de l’Université de Montréal. The work wraps up a lifetime of depression, oppression and censorship in 45 minutes through cruel satirical passages in extreme tempi and dynamics. Needless to say, by the end, when the timpani enter, pounding out the motive which represents the composer’s own identity (D-Eb-C-B for D. Sch.), I couldn’t help but feel the weight that he himself felt at the time in Soviet Russia as well as relief at finishing such an epic work. With tons of emotion running through my head, I floated on a cloud for about a day and a half, never wanting to come down. At some point, though, I inevitably had to land on two feet and start working hard again… until the next concert!
Another one of my greatest post-concert moments occurred last year with the NYOC. We played our last concert at Roy Thompson Hall. Mahler’s 6th symphony is a turbulent affair that bestows the timpanist (and second timpanist!) the job of sealing the composer’s fate. Similar to Schostakovitch 10, the symphony ends after many ups and downs, false victories and mocking tones with the two timpanists hammering out the fate theme, the march to the gallows. (Way to kick a guy when he’s down!) All the emotion of the whole summer rushed in at that one moment of conclusion and I was overcome with elation, and sadness and an overall feeling of greatness.
I am already seeing this quality in Alex Dyck, the pianist slash triangle-player-in-training here at the NYO. We’ve taken on Alex as an extra set of hands in La Valse and in Scheherazade and he’s been doing a great job. (I’m sure he would admit that the triangle is harder than it looks!) Occasionally, I’ve looked over from my end of the section and have had the pleasure of observing the pianist’s awe-stricken, open-mouthed, unrelenting grin. Is it safe to say that there is no greater pleasure in life than hitting a triangle while colleagues whack a bass drum on one side and smash cymbals together on the other?
Let’s just say that I am an adrenaline junkie. Great. The first step is admitting it. (I suppose I shouldn’t let my addiction get too out of hand. Would paragliding off the side of a cliff be too extreme?) Here I am at the National Youth Orchestra of Canada where we’ll play 12 concerts in 22 days and where the rehearsals are of such high quality that I feel some of that same elation after each practice. The NYO must be a haven for people like me, people who can’t get enough of a musical thrill. It can’t be a bad thing, right? The way I see it, it can only make me a better runner, a better musician and a better person. I know that I am in the right place now and I hope that I can spend my whole life in pursuit of that wonderful feeling. |
