…listen
…about the music

A cormorant guards the ferry.

Nope, not whales this time. Chamber music. Imagine that! Above is one of the many views from the ferry landing on Orcas Island, to the northeast of San Juan Island by about 35 peaceful minutes over the water. I had ventured over to moderate a pre-concert conversation with the delightful Seattle Chamber Players on Sunday. You can get the gist of what we talked about from a little article I wrote in the local paper last week. The audience was great, and wonderfully open to having lots of notes flung at them that were composed by composers in possession of a pulse. We smell better than the dead ones, at least, and return emails a lot more promptly. I’m hopeful that more contemporary music will find its way to these islands over time. Art is about the living, not just about the history that preceded us!

It’s also about sanity, and maintaining it. As I glided effortlessly across the archipelago I was reminded once again of the stark contrast between my former concert commutes and my current one, as I described earlier this summer in this blog post. The sentiment does not change, and I don’t think I’ll ever take the beauty of this life for granted, any more than I could possibly ignore the beauty of a chamber quartet in the throes of musical passion. Whether a watery passage on the ferry, or a lyrical passage in a piece of music, it’s wonderful to have one’s senses awash with the flow of joy.