Thursday, April 26, 2012

A Short Moment

I was talking to Claudette Laureano at The SPPS honors concert. We were reviewing our respective careers since we both graduated from the same high school (Music and Art). Claudette was conducting the SPPS Honor Orchestra and is a co-director of Minnesota Youth Symphonies besides teaching at the Breck School, me Instrumental director at Como Park Senior High School, placed there, well volunteered, after my beloved elementary positions were all cut.  

She with a BM in performance from the Manhattan School of Music me with a Ph. D.  from the University of Chicago. It would seem that our respective careers had moved in opposite directions; her's up and mine down. 

Yet after a moment of reflection it became clear to me that this was not so.  As an artist, a composer, it was important that my creative life came first.  I reserve for my composition all my ambition and focus. Perhaps it is true that as a professional composer I stayed out of the firing line of those who cared more to advance themselves than their music.   That is only a passing regret. 

I don't regret a minute of teaching young Americans. 

Period.  

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