Poster's Perspective: Music According to Elizabeth Davis

Hello. It's an honor and a pleasure to be asked to submit to this special anniversary week at the blog. For those of you who haven't met me yet, I'm Beth, a cellist and composer living in Columbia, MD, playing in a few of the community orchestras between Baltimore and Washington, DC. When Adam asked if I'd like to write an a article on the theme, celebrating the blog's anniversary and sharing my music experiences, I jumped at the chance.

In a word, music to me means collaboration - from joining a community orchestra when moving to a new town to composition projects that literally span the globe. More about that in a minute.

From my earliest school days in the choir to the orchestra concert I played in last weekend, I have always thrilled to be part of a greater whole. Nothing quite compares to slipping into the gestalt of seventy-odd people converging under the maestro's baton into that perfect moment when it all comes together. Whether it's the ethereal shimmering of a solo woodwind whispering above the muted strings or the enthusiastic, almost tribal rhythm pounding out in the low brass and percussion, being up in the middle of it, playing as a part of the whole, is an experience that you just wont get listening from the audience. And it doesn't just happen overnight. Every practice we have adds to the cohesive connectivity and reinforces musical and friendly bonds.

Music is also a way I can plug in to a new community. I've had to move many times following my spouse to new jobs in new states. And every time we resettle, one of the first things I do is find a local group I can join. I've yet to wind up somewhere that DIDN'T have a community orchestra nearby. Joining gives me an instant community of fellows who also love playing and I'll often end up playing in other chamber groups with members as well. My current string quartet for instance includes the orchestra's 2nd chair first violin and the principal violist who also conducts the ballet where I am now principal cellist. I even work as program assistant for a non-profit that will be playing a concert in Alexandria, VA this summer and Argentina next fall.

I'm currently in the middle of a project that has grown into quite a collaborative effort. It first started when I told one of the dancers where I was playing in the pit that I'd write a ballet for him. It has now grown to not only be slated to be performed by that ballet school and orchestra, but also be recorded by a youth orchestra on the other side of the country with a conductor who works predominantly with Czech ensembles (the conductor was a fellow student at college, he put me in touch with the youth orchestra director). My video editor is a high schooler I met through a fan base for The Piano Guys; my text editor is someone I used to play Dungeons & Dragons with when she was a teenager who now teaches creative writing in Michigan and wrote a poem I am currently setting to music for a tenor who works in Munich, Germany. You can find out more about this project HERE (http://kck.st/OuRmsh)

Finally, as Faith noted Sunday, music is family. These days I get to collaborate with music family members I would have never met without having music so much in my life.

Elizabeth Skola Davis