Immersion has begun.

I'm practicing my tail off for the upcoming concerto performance with the Portsmouth Symphony, which is in a mere 11 weeks.

November 4, 2012. My life is centered around this date. The planning, the practice, the preparation is immense. The meetings, the logistics, and the promotion is now in full swing. It's delightful, it's a dream and it's downright daunting all at the same time. 

My instinct was right in choosing this piece (The Fiddle Concerto by Mark O'Connor) to perform at my debut as a soloist. I knew I liked it, I knew it would be one step above me and therefore challenging to play, but I had no idea how much I would come to love it. The deeper I get into the piece with my practicing, the more discoveries I make, the more revelations I have, the more I find myself filled with a strange mix of humor and power and seriousness. 

As is the case with many players, my brain is working out many of the tricky fingerings in my sleep. Several times I have dozed off with a complicated passage running through my mind, imagining the fingerings and bowings with no solution apparent. Upon waking, miraculously, my brain somehow has worked it all out. It’s an addictive phenomenon, and it always gives me pause.

I wonder what discoveries await.....