Arutunian

Yesterday, I was walking to my car and heard a trumpet playing somewhere above me in the parking garage. I started running to my car (in case they'd stop playing by the time I got to my car) and immediately grabbed my trumpet. The other player was playing some warm ups, so when he would stop, I'd play the second line of the warm up. This happened a couple of times. Once the player probably realized he wasn't going crazy, he started playing a few notes the Arutunian Trumpet Concerto, a piece I just happened to be currently working on for my audition for the Honors Performance Series Young Adults program at Carnegie Hall! After the few notes he played, I continued where he left off, and so on and so forth.

I ended up searching the parking lot for this guy and we ended up talking for a long time about music, trumpet, and life in general. I have an intense fear of playing in public, but when I pulled out my trumpet and knew that I wanted to find this player by playing this impromptu trumpet game, I completely forgot about the outside world and what everyone would think about me for playing a random ass trumpet in a parking garage. 

So what did I get out of this?

• This might not seem like much to everyone else, but it was one of the coolest things that's ever happened to me that made me thankful all the opportunities with music, leadership, and Pi Kappa Phi that brought me to this moment
• Music can truly bring people together like none other.
• It also made me re-learn the thing I'm always telling my students to do: take (calculated) risks!
• Everything happens for a reason. I was angry about having to park in that garage earlier in the day, it took me forever to find a spot. But if I hadn't parked there, this wouldn't have happened!