Curiosity Fueled the Art: Part I 🔗

It’s no secret to my friends, colleagues and mentors that I like to think, ask questions and learn about weird or obscure things—occasionally to a fault. When I arrived in Miami Beach in the fall of 2016, my mind was overflowing with anxious questions: What kind of musician do I want to be? What purpose will my music and the music I make with others serve in the greater picture—society, communities, even history? Do I even want to play in an orchestra for the rest of my career? I had just played two seasons with the San Francisco Symphony as Acting Associate Principal Trumpet, the first of which coincided with the final year of my undergraduate studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. I was mentally and emotionally overwhelmed. But now, I had this opportunity at the New World Symphony, a place people described to me as a sandbox, a laboratory, an incubator for curious and ambitious musicians to pursue their ideas and make beautiful and exciting new things. My propensity for asking too many questions, a quality of which I occasionally felt ashamed (“Don’t worry about all that, just play the music!”), all of a sudden seemed like it could be a powerful tool in this new environment, one that I could share with my new colleagues and eventually use to connect more deeply with audiences. …