Touch Any Audience

A 50-year-old man sitting on a park bench slowly opens his instrument case and assembles a clarinet, attracting curious gazes from children. The man promptly adjusts his reed and starts playing several excerpts from standard clarinet repertoire, picking livelier movements to amuse his young listeners. The kids stare in awe and giggle when the man starts doing a two-step and dances around his quickly growing audience. Some of the children's parents wonder why the man doesn't have a hat in front of him like all the other street musicians, but most just admire his proficiency on the clarinet or smirk at his winking at the laughing children. This casual recital lasts for about an hour before the musician decides it's time to leave. So Clare (the man named his darling instrument) returns to the case, while comments like "What was he playing, daddy?" and "I want to learn clarinet! Please, mom?" inundate the dispersing crowd.

That man is I forty years from now.

There are many virtuoso musicians who I feel perform at an intimidating distance too great for listeners to relate to. They exhibit excellent lightning fingers and play with the most contemplated musical expressions that are obviously products of rigorous study and practice. But often only scholars can appreciate scholars. While awe-inspiring, stiff and by-the-book music may not evoke the emotions of a less experienced listener.

I don't want to play clarinet like I am spewing math equations into the air. I want to be able to infect any crowd with any emotion! After Saint-saen's clarinet sonata, the listeners will reach for their loved ones' hands; after Poulenc's sonata, people will wink and giggle at each other. And it doesn't matter if the audience has no clue who Mozart was and how classical music 'should' be played, because I, the performer, will make the music beautiful even to those who don't know what a major triad is.

That is my goal, a goal I've always practiced to achieve since I grew serious about playing clarinet. I can't create that effect now because I lack the experience and skill, but in forty years, I want to enrich my audience with journeys through a performance. An ambitious goal, I realize, but one I'm determined to achieve.