What a journey…

It’s hard to believe that today marks the one-year anniversary of winning the position of principal bassoon with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.  And what a year it’s been!  Leaving Milwaukee was hard.  Leaving Santa Fe was hard.  And moving was the worst thing ever.  But I can say it’s been a wonderfully rewarding first 5 months here in Dallas.

My colleagues here are wonderful and supportive.  It’s an honor to sit with them everyday.  We’ve played a ton of repertoire, or course.  But it was particularly thrilling to play Ravel’s Piano Concerto with my friend Helene Grimaud, Brahms 1, Mozart 39, The Nutcracker, and Shostakovich 7.  There’s more great music to come this year and on February 22nd they will announce repertoire for next season.

Getting a handle on Dallas has been “fun”.  The city is, of course, huge and overwhelming.  And traffic is bad and the drivers are worse.  But I definitely feel settled and I think I have a pretty good feel for getting around this behemoth of a place.  I’ve had some awesome BBQ, that’s for sure! One guilty pleasure highlight so far has been the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealy Plaza.  What an amazing museum dedicated to such an impactful event in American history.

An exciting thing that’s happened recently is I received a grant to finally record a CD!  In early May, my pianist Valerie Trujillo and I will meet the great guys at Azica Records for a few days.  We will be recording an as-yet-named disc of opera arias as played on the bassoon.  There will be favorites, including: Una furtiva lagrima, Voi che sapete, and O mio babbino caro.  But there will also be some much lesser-known gems of the opera repertoire.  This has been a dream/goal of mine for 10 years so I am beyond excited to finally be able to do it!!  I’ll keep you posted.

Also, recently I started playing a Fox 680 which is one of their newest models.  It’s been quite an adjustment from my 601, but I’m so happy with the instrument and am loving playing it in the orchestra.  I also know it will only get better the more it’s played in so it should be a great horn .

I miss teaching but I have had the opportunity to teach some individual lessons.  I did a master class for Bocal Majority here in Dallas back in November and I’m doing their big week-long camp in July right after the DSO gets back from Vail.  I’m also excited that I will be going to Florida State University in late February to rehearse the CD repertoire with my pianist and do a master class for the bassoon studio.  Valerie and I will also put together a short recital of some of the arias to get a feel for them.  It’s always such a joy for me to be back at my alma mater so it should be a great few days.

So it’s been a crazy journey but a great one.  I’m looking forward to the rest of the season and to seeing what the next year holds!