We left Ottawa to return to Festival of the Sound (Parry Sound)... a six hour drive. I grabbed an hour to whip through the Braun Solos. Then back to Toronto... 3 hours. Now another day of driving and I will probably play late into the night.
Driving long miles of highway, I play the movements of Braun in my mind.
Any recording is a snapshot in time... it is a glimpse of our lives and what we are able to make of them within the chaos of daily living and human responsibilities.
When I was younger, I bristled at the word "sacrifice" as I felt my life really was astonishingly comfortable despite its unusual aspects. Now, I feel that the word might be accurate to some degree.
Any musician who accomplishes something out of the ordinary has, indeed, sacrificed the pleasures and comfort of an "ordinary" life in exchange for the rare yet certain moments of ecstasy that come from pushing oneself as far as possible to express a solo voice in a huge number of settings.
Any musician who chooses a very stable and reliable existence (tenure track teaching or established symphony) will sacrifice, for the most part, the opportunity to fully present their individual voice. And for some, this is no sacrifice!
Many of my symphonic friends look at my recordings or my large paintings, and say that they "wish they had the time." I have a variety of bitchy responses, but the main one is: no one has time for anything in the mad dash of our lives.
To really play well, we must be self-driven.
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