I just returned from a great few days in Toronto at the first ever Canadian Women’s Brass Collective event, nicknamed, “That’s What she Said”. It was, especially for an inaugural effort, an incredible experience. It was well organized, well-run and it brought people from all over the country together to play and give lectures, workshops and masterclasses. I was happy and honoured to be asked by Karen Donnelly, principal trumpet extraordinaire of the NACO (who had the idea for the event), to participate, although I must say my first reaction to being asked to give a masterclass was a major attack of butterflies in my stomach. I was even half-hoping my schedule would conflict so I’d have a graceful reason to refuse. Yes, that is as lame as it sounds and I’m not proud of it!
So, I decided to give a little talk on Performance Anxiety to begin the masterclass. I even wrote an essay on the topic to help formulate my thoughts. I have yet to decide what to do with it, but I’m happy I wrote it because it was a big help in organizing my lecture. I did a lot of visualization the week before the event, which helped control my nerves. My husband, Dave, mentioned a few times, “you know, you don’t really have to give a speech”, whenever I would talk about how nervous I was. However, I had done all the work so it would have been a serious anti-climax for me if I had chickened out. Plus, if it helped even one person get a handle on their performance anxiety, it would all be worth it. So, imagine my gratification when a couple of people came up to me afterwards to tell me the subject really spoke to them. I was thrilled to hear my efforts weren’t in vain!
The final concert of the event was on Saturday night and it was crazy exciting and somewhat nerve-wracking, but it went really well and everyone in the audience seemed to love it. It made me realize, once more, how much I love playing brass ensemble music. There is nothing quite like the sound of brass! Even more wonderful (no offense to the other brass instruments) was being part of that particular group of trombonists. What a thrill to make such a wonderful sound together!
The event was extra special because we were celebrating how far we female brass players have come. I don’t think I was aware at the time what a rare breed I was back in 1992 when I won my job in the OSM. I knew plenty of female brass players, but we were even more under-represented in orchestras at the time than we are now. At least one other woman auditioned for my job when I won it, and that was Rachel Thomas, who’s been playing 2nd trombone in the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony for 25 years, so things were starting to change. Now, there are many women playing in orchestras in the Toronto area alone and I was glad to meet or get reacquainted with a few of them this weekend. We have three women playing in the brass section of the OSM (two horn players, Catherine Turner and Nadia Côté, and myself) on a permanent basis, plus several outstanding regular subs, including Amy Horvey (trumpet) who helped organize this event.
So, it was a deeply meaningful few days and I was grateful to be included. May it be the start of something that will repeat at least on a semi-regular basis.
I know you’re wondering, what has this to do with gardening, or knitting?? Not much, obviously, but this blog is becoming pretty eclectic, I’m afraid, and I guess I’ll just embrace it rather than stress about where I should be blogging what and whether I should start a whole new blog about music. However, you can count on me going back to my usual subjects next time! Probably….
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