Have you ever had a detour turn out well?

With two performances on piano last week, and three on harp this week, I marvelled once again at the unexpected things that can happen in one's life. Back in the early 80's, I was a music education student at Indiana University School of Music (now Jacobs School of Music) with a concentration in piano. All was OK, but there was no zeal in what I
was doing...until one evening which changed everything.

All piano students were required to be in an ensemble, and I was assigned to the Women's Chorus. We were to sing in the orchestra pit during the university production of the Nutcracker Ballet (a part at the end of the first act which is usually covered by strings in professional productions) and I was placed right behind the harpists. I was  entranced. Already familiar with the Waltz of the Flowers harp cadenza from my parents' music collection, I got a front seat to beautiful harp music in the ballet score that I had never heard before.

The next semester, the first thing I did was to sign up for beginner harp lessons. Before I knew it, I was taking private lessons from esteemed harp instructor Linda Wood Rollo and taking part in Susann McDonald's weekly master classes. My life was forever changed by the wonderful harpists I met and became colleagues with. The following year brought a change from piano study to harp and a world of new possibilities.

That made it all the more special when I began receiving calls to play in the South Bend Symphony Orchestra a few years later, and when I served as the harpist for the Southold Dance Theater's production of the Nutcracker Ballet during the years that they used live music.

I am so grateful for this unexpected detour that has added so much to my life. Stay tuned!