It was my first time playing with an orchestra, and even though it was the Empire State Repertory Orchestra, I was still way out of my league. Not helping matters in the least was the fact that somehow we were late for this first rehearsal, throwing someone with severe social anxiety way off his game. As I sheepishly stepped through the orchestra already making its wild way through Copland’s ‘Hoe-Down’ movement of his ‘Rodeo’ ballet, I dodged the string-player’s elbows and squeezed into the second oboe’s spot near the front and center of the whole group. From that day forward, the conductor did not like me very much.
Looking back, I cannot blame him – and even at that time, I knew most of the blame fell on me – for not being good enough, not having the first clue about orchestra etiquette or decorum, and definitely not being prepared enough for the sort of talent that the ESYO family sought and sustained. My chosen instrument – the impossibly difficult oboe – was the only thing that got me into such a vaunted space; no one wanted to attempt a tackle and taming of that dreaded double-reeded monstrosity. I had only picked it because a girl I liked in grade school had selected that as her chosen instrument. Somehow, I’d made it into mine in the ensuing years of blood, sweat and tears – and all of them would be elicited from those rehearsals and practice sessions and weekly private lessons.
Aaron Copland – the brilliant, and gay, composer with ties to Brandeis University, where I eventually ended up matriculating – would bracket my years in the Repertory Orchestra and the Empire State Youth Orchestra. On this first night, his sixteenth notes gave my tongue a run for its barely-teenaged money, and my mind reeled at the speed and power with which the orchestra charged through the sheet music; like some wildly uncontrollable bucking bronc, it grabbed me by the jodhpurs and did its best to throw me off.
It succeeded a number of times that first rehearsal. I lost my place, couldn’t catch up with the rest of the players, and felt terribly like I did not in any way belong there. Like any good cowboy, however, some bit of fire inside of me refused to let me give up. Well, a bit of fire coupled with my parents’ insistence on not dropping out – not that I even proposed such a thing, even though I was in over my head. Over the next two years, I would focus on my practice, work with my teacher, and more or less master the oboe well enough to get me into the actual Youth Orchestra. It still wasn’t where I belonged, but my innate tenacity insisted on asserting itself despite grave social anxiety, crippling self-doubt, and all sorts of imposter syndrome set-backs.
On that first evening trying to capture Copland’s mad genius, I couldn’t hear the message he was trying to get across from all the stress I felt – and I wouldn’t hear his real music until my very last concert with the orchestra the following year. That much I regret about the experience – the competition, the five-hour double rehearsals, and the rustic weekend at Frost Valley stressed me out so much that any appreciation in music that I should have been developing was made impossible until I was at the end of my time there.
So yes, regrets… I’ve had a few… but then again, too few to mention.
