Yoo Jin Jeong / Week 3 / Tuesday 34

           When people gather in a grand hall to attend a concert, they're probably not thinking about the orchestra. All their attention goes to the music, and not to the players who are, at that moment, no better than a live radio for all the audience could care. But what the audience doesn't know is that each concert is a unique experience for each players, and that they can have the time of their lives onstage, especially with the right conductor. I can say this in confidence because I have played for a maestro before, and it was an experience of a lifetime.

           I started playing the flute when I was in 7th grade for the school band and continued all the way through high school. When I came to college, I realized that lack of practice could make me rusty and decided to join the college orchestra. Now is just so happened that this year was the 60th anniversary of our college, so the college asked us to play for their 60th anniversary concert. Since this meant that we didn't have to pay for the concert hall or the conductor, we gladly agreed.

           Now because I was in a band and not an orchestra until college, my knowledge of the world of classical music was very limited. So when we were told that our conductor was going to be Maestro Chi Young Jeong, I didn't really care. My orchestra members kept telling me that he was one of the best conductors in Korea, but I was honestly more focused on forcing the running notes of the Russian Dance from the Nutcracker into my brain. Since the maestro was a very busy man, we only had the last two weeks before concert to practice with him. Before that, another conductor helped us with our practices. He was a fun man, easily joking around and trying to make friend with us. He reminded me a lot of my high school band conductor.

           Two weeks from the concert we went to Korea National University of Arts to practice with the maestro. When I first saw him, I thought of Alan Rickman, because of his stern face and low voice. When the practice began, he told us every fine point we had to tune to make our songs perfect, and I realized that he really was different for all the other conductors I played with before. He was precise and knew exactly how he wanted to orchestra to sound, and how he could draw that sound out from the orchestra. He told the wind instruments to play the slow beginning of Italian Street Song without breathing during the phrase, and for the entire orchestra to exaggerate the staccato at Ohne Sorgen. The orchestra moved under his directions like I've never seen before.

           Then came the night of the concert. I was the third flute because I was a freshman, but because some songs required two flutes or less, I only played half the songs. This didn't include the first song, which was the famous William Tell Overture, so for that song I could sit and watch.

           I was completely blown away.

           I already knew that the maestro was an amazing conductor, but on stage he was a completely different man. He led the music with every inch of his being. At this point, I couldn't even call it conducting. He shaped, wove, and molded the music into place with one look or the slightest move of his baton. He was in complete control of the music unlike any conductor I have ever seen before. He wasn't a conductor. He was the music itself. I sat there, transfixed, one part of my mind trying to comprehend what I was seeing while the other was trying to remember everything the best I could. When it was my turn to play, I looked more at the maestro than I did at the music. It was an exuberance I've never felt before.

           When I came down from the stage I realized that if there was any reason for me to stay in the orchestra, this was it. That was the experience of my life, something no one watching from the audience would ever know. To this day I'm with my college orchestra, and whenever I take my seat on stage in front of the conductor, I still feel a wonderful excitement that reminds of that time, like a fleeting piece of a dream that you cannot recreate but keeps you up at night for days until you fall asleep again, hoping with excitement that you may dream that same dream again.