Deep in the Heart of Texas...

I am now three days into my first official visit to the state of Texas (unofficially my first visit was in August when I connected through Houston to get to Mexico, but no honest traveler counts an airport layover as a true visit to a new location).  Yes, believe it or not, as much as I've traveled I've never found my way down here until now.  Now that I have, though, it brings my total states visited count to 34 (unless I've done my math incorrectly, which is always possible) as well as Washington D.C.  In the next 6.5 weeks that total will grow by at least 2, and possibly by as many as 8 depending on bus routes. 

Alas, I'm getting ahead of myself.  Why am I in Texas in the first place and why will I be visiting as many as 8 new states in the next 6.5 weeks?  I'll tell you!  I'm currently contracted as the tenor trombonist for the first (of what is hoped to be many) national tour of a holiday-themed musical entertainment presentation (for lack of a more concise genre name) entitled "Handel's Messiah Rocks".  This is the first of what will likely be several entries covering my experience on this tour.

OK.  So.  Texas.  Here I am.  The town of Orange, Texas, to be specific.  Where is Orange?  It is located approximately 2 hours due east of Houston, along the Louisiana border.  What that means is I have done a lot of back and forth travel in the last week.  I flew home from Monterrey last Friday (via Houston), spent a total of about 56 hours in Beaverton, then turned around and flew right back to Houston (closest major airport to Orange).  Whew!  But wait a minute...  This is supposed to be a tour, right?  Then why have I been in one town for three days already?  Well it turns out you have to learn and rehearse the music before you can take it on tour... so that's what we're doing.  The Lutcher Theater for the Performing Arts here in Orange, TX (a nice hall, by the way) is the setting for what is known among these types of tours as "tech week" and it will also host the first official performance of the tour this coming Sunday.  Sorry, getting ahead of myself again...  Many of you may still be wondering just exactly what the heck kind of show "Handel's Messiah Rocks" IS.  Well, for those I have not yet talked to about it, I would describe it as a re-imagining of Handel's "The Messiah" oratorio with a modern audience in mind, drawing from styles of a variety of well known hard rock and metal acts of the past 30 years or so, while attempting to maintain the spirit of the original composition.  Imagine some of the most well known motives from "The Messiah" fused with riffs reminiscent of Guns N' Roses, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Styx, and Van Halen over the course of a 90 minute show, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what you'd be in store for.  The show was originally premiered as a PBS special in 2008, with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops.  The version which we are doing has been re-orchestrated and reduced to make it more practical for touring.

To all my classically-trained colleagues out there, I KNOW what you're thinking... Believe me, I thought the same thing when I first heard what this show was.  Even the least cynical of you would likely describe such a concept as "cheesy" as best, and perhaps you're right.  I'll say, though, that while the jury is certainly still out on how the entire experience will be looked back upon (we've only been at it for two days, after all), this material has a potential to energize crowds (in spite of its arguably limited target audience) in such a way that it will maintain its appeal for us as well, even over the course of a 20+ city tour.  If nothing else, it will be interesting and exciting to have the experience of being a touring musician.  I'm quite looking forward to it.

Here's the snag, though.  The actual TOUR in the literal sense won't begin until November 16th...  Due to a scheduling snafu involving a couple of canceled shows in Dallas, next week is free for the musicians.  After this we will all reconvene in Owensboro, KY whereupon we will continue with the remainder of the tour uninterrupted.  In the meantime I'm taking the opportunity to head up to Chicago for a week to visit friends and hang out, and of course expand my musical horizons when possible and/or practical.  It's already been nearly 6 months since the last time I was in Chi (the longest I've been away since graduating NU) and it will be great to get to spend some a week up there.  Can't think of  better use of my time off from tour!

OK, it's getting late and I have to be up early for rehearsal.  I'll finish with a few thoughts on my initial Texas experience thus far...

Small-town Texas is essentially everything I expected it to be, with a few small exceptions.  1) I didn't expect it to get so cold here, especially as far south as we are.  Luckily I have warmer-weather clothing with me.  2) The locals here are some of the friendliest strangers I've ever met.  Everyone from the hotel workers to the convenience store clerks and waiters, to the people from the foundation which is sponsoring our performance here in Orange who have been tending to our needs at the hall so far this week.  I wouldn't say I "doubted" the Texas hospitality I'd heard so much about, but I guess I didn't expect it to be this "potent".  Definitely a pleasant surprise.  3) Tex-Mex IS all it's cracked up to be... I was eager to compare it to the actual Mexican food ("Mex-Mex"?) I tried over the past 2 months, and was not disappointed.  Different, for sure, but equally good.  4) Like Monterrey, this area has been heavily effected by hurricanes over the past few years...  Not being from somewhere where hurricanes ever hit, I would have never expected people to be so gung-ho about them rolling through their town several times a year, every year.  It's strange to me... I don't know if I'd ever be able to treat that as an acceptable inconvenience the way these folks do... 

OK, that's all I got for now.  More to come.  G'night, ya'll!

A Blog is Born: Wrapping up 2+ months in Mexico

Seeing as this is the first post ever on this page, I'll give it a little preface:

I've always had a knack for writing.  Often I find it to be an easier and more comprehensive way of expressing myself than verbal communication.  Yet for whatever reason, save for a few Facebook notes and an assortment of MySpace entries (from back in the days when people still used MySpace), I've never really maintained a serious blog.  My good friend and colleague Brian Morgan (aka "Slidefunk") had asked me to be a contributor to his Blogger page, which required me to create an account of my own.  Hence, I am giving web logging another whirl.  We'll see how long this one lasts.

OK, here we go.   Post #1.

Since July 5th, I have spent a total of nine days in the United States of America.  Traveling, especially internationally, is one of the most fortunate byproducts of a career in the performing arts.  I've been abroad enough in the last several years that simply being in a foreign country doesn't "shock" me, but it still puts things in perspective when I think about how little time I've spent in my home country in the last few months.  After barely having time to soak in everything I was feeling after my long awaited second trip to Japan, I was on a plane again, this time bound for Monterrey, Mexico.

I'll spare the long story of how I ended up down here (if you don't know and want to, just ask me) and instead give a little retrospective on the experience itself.

I don't think it's any big secret that Mexico on the whole is not the most stable place on earth in which to spend an extended period of time right at the moment.  The unfortunate thing about Monterrey, is that it is one of the more modern, economically stable Mexican metropolises and for a long time was considered to be the safest city not only in Mexico but in all of Latin America (along with Santiago, Chile).  Unfortunately, in the past year or so the cartels have begun to assert themselves in this region and the locals are starting to feel much less secure.  That said, as a law-abiding private citizen and a foreigner, it's not as though Mexico's problems just find themselves on your doorstep.  In eight and a half weeks here (including an undeniably treacherous nine day orchestra tour through several volatile border cities in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas) I have neither witnessed nor experienced anything out of the ordinary (knock on wood).  Whether this has more to do with luck, or whether international news media such as the BBC have exaggerated the situation down here for the sake of shock value, I don't know.  Nor do I particularly care.

My personal experience here has been largely positive.  I have met many great people and have been treated well.  The orchestra I have been playing with is, for all intents and purposes, the primary performing arts organization for the city of Monterrey, a metropolitan area of approximately four million people.  That is definitely neat to think about.  Many Mexican orchestras are funded and salaried by the governing body of the state or in which they play (similar to European orchestras) but this one has an affiliation with the local state university.  Therefore its official title is "Orquesta Sinfónica de la Unversidad Autónomo de Nuevo León".  The orchestra is in somewhat of a transitional period at the moment, as they recently severed ties with their previous conductor and hired a new one whom most of the musicians expect can take the orchestra to a new level of respectability.  Without delving too deeply into my entire experience playing down here (which would take many paragraphs), I have immensely enjoyed the opportunity to feel as though I am playing with a full-time ensemble, especially as principal.

The orchestra has enjoyed my services too, it seems, as they have expressed a serious interest in my taking this job permanently.  I have mixed feelings about this prospect, certainly, but many things about it are enticing.  Foremost, it's a full-time job playing trombone.  For whatever reason this orchestra has had a particularly hard time keeping principal its trombonists, and except for a few brief stretches, the position has been vacant for several years.

Were it not for the winter audition season looming, I would actually consider telling them right now that I'd be willing to come back in January and play at least through the winter and spring.  I'm only 25 and don't yet consider myself to be the best musician I hope to be one day, so I want to leave my options open and give myself the opportunity to be in the best possible situation a few years down the road.  Talking with many of the expats who have been playing in the orchestra for several years, many of them did not intend on staying as long as they have.  While in most cases they have good reasons to stay, I'm not sure I want to allow myself to get rooted in a situation like this just yet.  I fear that if I committed to a contract and stayed for a couple of years, I'd be the same musician when I finished as when I started, and I'm not sure I can reconcile with that prospect when I won't even turn 30 for five more years.

While I've been saying for awhile that I would like to spend time playing abroad early in my career, Mexico is not necessarily what I had in mind...  One perk, however, of being here as opposed to somewhere in Asia or Europe (except Spain, of course) is that it allows me to work on my Spanish.  For those who don't know, I took four years of Spanish in high school and it was generally my best and favorite subject outside of band.  I had even briefly considered majoring in it in college before I decided to play music instead.  As it was, I essentially didn't use my Spanish at all for about 7 years...  That element of this experience has particularly welcome, to be sure.

I have really been missing being where the "action is" lately.  That doesn't really have anything to do with being in Mexico as opposed to Portland, necessarily.  I've just been thinking about the opportunities I once had to be around world-class musicians on a regular basis and feeling as though I took that for granted at the time.  I've been feeling particularly nostalgic about Chicago and Northwestern and the time I spent there.  I was ready to be done when I graduated and was satisfied wholly with my decision to do so for awhile, but now I sometimes wish I had stayed.  With that said, I'm trying to get the "coulda woulda shouldas" out of my thought process, and with one phase about to finish and another about to begin, it's an ideal time to start thinking about the future, not the past.  I'm trying my best to think of everything I do as an opportunity to grow and improve rather than just a means to a greater end.  It's still a work in progress!

I have one more concert to play here, this week.  The highlight of the program for us will be the Scriabin 2nd Symphony.  If you're not familiar with it (I wasn't), give it a listen.  Very Germanic in style, with clear influence from his slightly older contemporaries, Wagner and Strauss.

On Friday, I fly back to Portland and will be there for about 56 hours... Just enough time to pick up a few winter clothes, see a few friends, and maybe get into some Halloween shenanigans.  On November 1st I leave at the crack of dawn and fly right back to Houston, Texas where I will begin tech and rehearsals for a touring show called "Handel's Messiah Rocks". 

OK folks, that's gonna do it for now.  Solid return to the world of blogging if I do say so myself...

I will discuss the "Handel's Messiah Rocks" tour in greater detail in a later entry, but for those who are curious as to what I will be doing for seven weeks in November and December and want a basic idea, here's a link to the website:

http://www.handelsmessiahrocks.com/


--Louis