Sooner or later all performers have the thrill of seeing how their performance has affected someone. Of course, when you’re in school you tend to presume that any praise is given out partly out of some sense of duty or parent or school pride.
I want to tell you about the experience I had when I went on a band tour of Europe. I was just out of high school (my band director’s nomimation got in the tour). Of course I was focused on getting the music right and hoping no one would notice I wasn’t even in the same league as the other hundred kids (I was from a small town). I really hadn’t thought about who the audience would be when we got to Europe. Well, our first concert was in Luxembourg Garden in Paris. After all, it was the first time I’d ever performed for someone who had absolutely no connection to me other than proximity. When we played “Stars & Stripes Forever,” they clapped in time.
I got chills. Buried in the thoughts about just getting the music right, was the notion that it was a bit obnoxious to be playing a big old American flag-waver in the middle of France. And yet they got it. It was music they recognized and appreciated. I was surprised to learn I knew their language.
