balance
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What time zone am I in?
I travel. A LOT. I’ve frequently had months where I have concerts every weekend in a different city, which means I’m home Monday-Tuesday, swapping out suitcases and musical scores before heading to my next gig. One memorable week last year had me doing a 36 hour turnaround between weeks in Brisbane, Australia and Montreal, Canada. Good times. I’m frequently asked how I deal with jet lag when I’m on that kind of crazy schedule crossing multiple time zones and spending, at max, 5 days in any one zone. So I’ve compiled a list of tips to of what keeps me (mostly) functional and (somewhat) sane: Hydrate like you’ve just…
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Let us be well
I awoke to heartbreaking news this morning of the death of one of my favorite singers; Scott Hutchison, the lead singer of the Scottish band Frightened Rabbit was found dead at Port Edgar, Scotland. Although the cause of death was not determined, from the response of his family and bandmates (and indeed anyone who listened to his music, and knew his struggles), it was clearly suicide. Mental health among performers and artists has been in the news lately, and Scott’s death feels like a devastating but timely reminder of both the toll it can take and its prevalence in modern society. Yet it still feels like a taboo topic…
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May the Force be with you
One of the great pleasures of being a conductor who specializes in feature-film-with-live-orchestra concerts is that I get to do movies that I absolutely adore. I’ve been on the Harry Potter junket for a couple of years now and that’s been a huge amount of fun. (Those are Gryffindor and Slytherin scarves, for those of you not versed in that particular universe!) While I adore Batman and Fantasia and Ratatouille I have to confess one upcoming movie gig has the fangirl in me squealing with delight: I mean, I saw it in the theater. Six times. My brother and I owned an LP of what was essentially the music and…