Contemplating Mahler

So, after the first of two performances with the Mid-Atlantic Symphony, I am still thinking about the tremendous sounds made by concertmaster Kurt Nikkanen, the elegance of Brandie Sutton's Mahler #4, and the sheer magic and musical brilliance of pianist Leon Fleisher...and contemplating Mahler.

Tomorrow night, a colleague who has become a friend over the past four years and I get to hear the Baltimore Symphony play the first symphony of Gustav Mahler. This work is dear to me for many reasons, the main being that it is a "signifier" in my life.

I started my university studies at the University of South Carolina in 1987. The first orchestra concert included the first symphonies of Beethoven and Mahler. Flash to 1998, and the last Shepherd School Symphony concert that I would hear as a student: Mahler #1.

A few months later, after a tremendous summer on the mountaintop with the National Repertory Orchestra (Valerie-Tessa Chermiset, René Reder, Jenny Snyder Kozoroz, Kana Kimura, Dorris Dai Janssen...anyone else who was there, CHIME IN), I moved to Miami Beach to begin two years with the New World Symphony. Rep on the first concert? A work by Michael Tilson Thomas and - yes - the first symphony of Gustav Mahler.

A few years passed, and then came 2002 and Spoleto Festival USA.
In addition to "The Flying Dutchman" and "Death and Transfiguration" - yep, you guessed it. The memory of playing alongside many friends and colleagues, all of us just "in it to win", is something that I shall always treasure.

So - what's the "signifier"?

Transition, and openness to the future and the unknown.

April 21, 2018 and here I am, once again stepping into a portal with an open heart, tremendous curiosity, and a determination to step further out of the comfort zones as I did at each of those times. Let's see what the future holds....

Anyone else have a "signifying work" in their life?