Orchestra Musicians

As part of my varied college travels, I majored in music at the North Carolina School of the Arts for a few years. I didn’t finish there because my asthma was getting worse and worse, and that’s not a good thing for a woodwind player. Going there was still one of the best things I’ve every done. Even thought I didn’t finish, I loved being in a place where everyone was passionate about their art, and I loved all the opportunities to play with various ensembles.   

I often wonder what life would have been like had I been able to continue – certainly very different than it is now. Here’s an interesting article, "Orchestral Life - The Full Story", by a British journalist about the lives of orchestra musicians.  The article begins: 

“My husband, Tom Eisner, doesn't have a job. He has a vocation. He spends his working life making a noise on a wooden contraption in the London Philharmonic Orchestra's first violin section. In a week when it has been revealed that the government's planned changes to National Insurance payments could bankrupt most of the UK's orchestras, Tom, like his vastly talented colleagues, is determined to keep on making that wonderful noise, come what may.”