Music in the Air

I love the way that music, especially live classical music, can transport me to another place, up into the air and outside of my everyday self. I was fortunate to attend a performance by the Austin Symphony recently, and after I finished counting all the string instruments and checking what was set up on the stage in the percussion section, and marveling over conductor Peter Bay’s continued success in taking this orchestra to greater and greater heights every year, I settled in to the music. After intermission, the orchestra played Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto #3 in D Minor and it soared. I soared with it.

I was lucky to have classical music in my life from childhood. In my elementary school, Alamo Heights in San Antonio, Music Appreciation was required curriculum. We listened, learned and had to name the music of the masters. I remember repeatedly singing the cue of ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King was written by Greig,’ in preparation for a test. I studied ballet from the age of 5 and later danced with the ballet company in San Antonio. We performed to some of the greats; I especially loved Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, a collaborative holiday production by the symphony and ballet for San Antonio school children. My parents had season tickets to the symphony and included me from a young age. I soared into the heavens even more easily then. After the concert, walking back to the car, my dad would tuck me under his overcoat to keep me warm, and perhaps bring me back down to earth.

There aren’t many things that can do this for us. Take us out of our everyday lives, our small concerns and big worries, and let us loose into a space filled only with music. In these moments I am often reminded of the repetitive dream I had as a child—I could fly. My wings were the pink blanket my mother made for me, stretched across my shoulders like a cape. I didn’t go very high, swooping in and out of treetops, gazing down at the ground below. I could fly just high enough to see things from another angle, to change my perspective and awaken refreshed. This is the gift that music gives us.