Many of you know that I picked up my French horn again this past year, took a few recovery lessons with Peter Reit last summer (thanks, Peter!) and have been getting my chops back by playing at PSUMC, some rock bands. When I signed up via the MATA Festival to play horn with TILT Brass (pros!) as part of Super Critical Mass' sound installation, SWELTER, I was able to allow myself to believe that I could participate without anyone seeing or hearing me. Until the day before Tuesday's Make Music New York performance around Central Park Lake, when I saw the press list: NPR Classical, The New York Times, The Big City/Classical TV, the New Jersey Star-Ledger. UM!
I didn't bail, though I was tempted to. Lemon Peele and Alaska talked me down from the ledge, so I showed up hyper and ready. And the funny thing is, once I got there and saw the critics it honestly just felt nice to see them. I mean, I like them. They're good peoples. Musicians themselves and music lovers, so Hey! Thanks for coming! Right? Right. Plus, it felt so good to be playing with others again that my focus was there.
I knew that our French horn formation on the rocks would give photographers some interesting visual content, and was aware of the cluster of folks snapping shots of us throughout, so I wasn't completely surprised to see us on the NPR Classical blog or The New York Times Arts page but — this is some handsome reward for my first time out in a decade!
Here is Anastasia Tsioulcas's Make Music New York wrap on NPR Classical (see photo #4 in the slideshow complete with My Real Name): http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2011/06/23/137302271/one-day-who-knows-how-many-performers-make-music-2011
And the photo, gigantic and wall-to-wall above the fold on the cover of yesterday's New York Times Arts section. (!!) Click to read Tony Tommasini's full review.
I am doing it. And I've got pictures to prove it.
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