Sage Advice Worth Remembering

When I was a teenager I would occasionally wonder if my desire to play music professionally would ever come to fruition. Growing up in Denver, CO meant watching The Denver Symphony dissolve in 1989. In May, 1990 the Denver Symphony Association merged with the newly formed Colorado Symphony Association, a new and initially smaller orchestra employing many of the Denver Symphony musicians.

The new orchestra continually endured cuts and budget adjustments. Watching it was unsettling, and as teenager, it was always fresh on my mind as conversations with fellow teen musicians would ultimately end with negative feelings and views for our futures in the arts.

I specifically remember returning from a six week music festival in British Columbia and talking about my fears with my parents. While neither of my parents were musicians, they offered incredibly sage wisdom to juxtapose against my increasingly negative outlook.

For many years, both of my parents volunteered as docents for the Denver Zoo. This eventually led to their becoming volunteer interpretive naturalists for the US Fish and Wildlife department. Their nontraditional life experience and unusual skills offered the perfect solace and understanding for me.

“We (humans) will always need art and music,” my mom started. “This is what separates us from animals. Animals have few needs for survival: food, water, shelter and space. Animals do not and cannot create or appreciate art.” (And no, the elephant with a paintbrush is nothing more than its human trainers trying to adopt some kind of anthropomorphic obsession.) “Art is what makes work worthwhile.”

So as I see a new wave of orchestras wavering and suffering in the current economy, I found myself revisiting some of those thoughts from my teen years and wondering “why bother?” But my mother’s words echo in my head and I again remember this is what separates us from the animals. What makes us human is truly special and precious. We just have to remind ourselves every now and then of the absolute importance of it.