Dreams do come true...

August 29, 2007 at 10:12 PM

A year later... ok I am not a very good blogger... But then again I have been busy, very busy. My season is starting again next week and I thought, while I am at it, I might try and write a little bit. Because this student has been growing up and is now standing with both legs into the real big professional world.
If you wonder what I mean... I have been playing with a lot of orchestra's lately, leading them. It started out with leading the Britten Pears Orchestra in Aldeburgh, England. It is a lovely place on the coast, where Britten and Pears spend a good deal of their time. They purchased an old mill and made it into a concerthall. Now Snape Maltings is a little artistic heaven, there are little workshops and it gives musicians a place to work and perform. The Britten Pears Orchestra is made up out of all young musicians, some still in school, others just graduated, and they are from all over the world. They also have coaches, the former concertmaster of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the artistic leader of the Dutch Ballet Orchestra and the violist from the Alban Berg Quartet, to name a few. They do not only lead sectionals, but are there during rehearsals, helping the orchestra, section and individual develope as a very good orchestral player. I also had the chance to be assistant concertmaster with the Dutch Ballet orchestra, where I had very sweet collegues and learned a lot, as well just enjoyed playing every minute. This summer I was in Santiago, to work there as the concertmaster of the philharmonic orchestra at the theater in Santiago. There are many young people in the orchestra, from all over the world, and the energy was amazing. During one of the performances of Tchaikovksy Serenade, I simply got goosebumps, because the group is developing so fast and I will be curious to see where this orchestra will go, because we are going to hear some very good things from Santiago.
Now I am back in Holland. This season I will be working a couple times as concertmaster of the Radio Chamber Philharmonic in Holland. Their chief conductor is Jaap van Zweden (also starting now in Dallas), who also happened to be the youngest concertmaster ever with the Concertgebouw orchestra, he was not even 20 when he started working there. So he knows the job!!!
I am very excited about this new thing in my life, I could not have imagined 2 years ago I would be working this much as concertmaster, and I love it. It feels good to be part of something bigger! I still do recitals and play solo with orchestra (just before the summer I had my personal premiere with the Sibelius concerto, which I had never performed before), but I would not ever want to miss this. It feels as if I have reached the right combination of everything, next week orchestra, the week afterwards recital in a beautiful castle outside of Paris, then more orchestra and then I finally have a dream come true and I play all Brahms sonatas in a recital. And after that... some more horsebackriding at the beach. This life can't be real, it is a dream!!!

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on August 30, 2007 at 12:23 AM

What do you attribute it to? I'm always interested in bios.

From Scott 68
Posted on August 30, 2007 at 12:56 PM

you have alot of fans here including me who missed your blogs good to have you back

From Terez Mertes
Posted on August 30, 2007 at 8:05 PM

>It feels as if I have reached the right combination of everything...

Ooh, lucky you. Hope it goes on and on!

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