Yup, that's me in the orange sweater. Me in my mid-twenties, Principal oboe of the Romanian Opera of Timisoara. My first full-time gig, which I did for four years before moving back home to Vermont.
When I came home, I felt determined to make music my full-time career. I picked up a job as a waitress (which I was terrible at), and started auditioning. But, part-way into this exhausting and demoralizing process, I realized that I didn't want to have to move away again. I also realized that I wanted a home, children, car, etc. and there was no guarantee I would be anywhere near that within the next decade! So, I went back to school, became a nurse, and decided that my music career was over.
But every time I held onto that thought, some opportunity to play again came up, and I was right back into it. Once you've tasted the excitement of performing, can you ever go back? So the gigs multiplied, and started to encroach on my "day job". That's when I realized how deeply my musician's work ethic was ingrained in my psyche, and how that work ethic did not cross over into my day job.
I was taught that,
arriving less than thirty minutes before a rehearsal was the equivalent to arriving LATE (and arriving earlier than that is even better especially as an oboist).
you arrive at the first rehearsal PREPARED.
my own personal work habits include at least one freak-out moment when I have to make sure I have the right reeds, music, instrument, stand, black (all black) clothes, shoes, etc. This usually happens half-way down my driveway, although I have been known to do this while cruising down the interstate.
As a freelance musician, there is at least one additional rule. You do NOT turn down a gig, especially with a group that:
1. performs music that you love at a high level
2. could advance your career
3. pays well
Turning down this kind of gig can mean you don't get asked back!
To me these aren't just rules. They are the difference between being a professional and being an amateur. This begs the question, is this nature or nurture? Was I trained to follow these rules? Or did I absorb and create these rules because music means so much to me?
What prompted me to examine this idea is a recent experience has made me have to break that last, cardinal rule...
But back to opera...
I may have been raised to appreciate classical music, but I was NOT raised to appreciate opera. The job at the Romanian Opera was just a chance to almost make a living - Romanian money was worth very little back then. (I had a friend describe his job of many years at the Met as the "golden hand-cuffs". The Romanian Opera was more like tin-foil handcuffs :) ) But, despite my inherited aversion to opera, working day-in and day-out with those terrific musicians, both in the pit and on-stage, learning the works of Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, and many others, performing two- to three-times a week, I fell in love.
So, returning to Vermont and giving up on music also meant giving up on opera. Even when I started working around the state, there were little to no opportunities t hear opera, let alone perform it!
Enter the Opera Company of Middlebury!
For anyone who hasn't heard of the OCM, they are a Vermont-based company that performs each fall and spring at the Town Hall Theater in Middlebury. They have tackled works by Puccini, Verdi, Mozart, Rossini, and others that I can't name off the top of my head. So this year, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, they decided to perform Candide by Leonard Bernstein as a live-streamed event. I was practically drooling over the oboe part, listening to performances conducted by Bernstein, putting together a solid arsenal of reeds, ordering special instrument covers...it was glorious.
But then I was forced to break the cardinal rule of free-lancing. I've been stuck at home, not just because of COVID, but because of herniated disc in my back. I had been optimistic in January, after a series of injections, that I would be able to tolerate rehearsing for 6 hours and then recording for 6 hours over a weekend, but as the steroids have worn off the awful truth came to me in the voice of my husband asking, "do you really think you can do this?" And the truth was, of course I can't. So I made the dreaded call, helped find a sub, and mourned.
The OCM orchestra recorded their part this past weekend, and one musician said that members of the orchestra wept when they played the overture. Reading that, part of me almost wept as well. But part of me felt so proud of the profession that has chosen me. I'm not the only musician who follows a set of rules similar to my own. We hold ourselves to a strict standard of excellence, in honor of the amazing music that we make together.
For anyone interested in checking out the Opera Company of Middlebury's upcoming performance, here's a link to their website: https://ocmvermont.org/
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