We all want the best seat in the house when we go to an orchestra concert. Front row of the balcony. Center of the orchestra section. The box seats. We assess the acoustics. We look for the “stereo sound” that can be created by sitting in just the right spot where we get the bass of the cellos and lower brass and the highs of the violins. We want the ultimate experience when we listen to that grand symphony.
But sitting in the audience – I don’t care what seat you’re talking about – can in no way compare to sitting directly in the center of a symphony orchestra. And that’s where I sit.
I play flute and all you orchestra aficionados will know that the upper woodwinds sit just about directly in the middle of the orchestral seating chart. Directly behind the strings, we sit just in front of the clarinets as the “bridge” to the brass.
I’d always played in bands during my formative years, not having the benefit of attending a school district with a strings program. Not until I attended college did I even have an opportunity to audition for an orchestra, but I did so at the first chance I had, and I was asked to sit second flute with the Phoenix College Orchestra, a community orchestra not unlike the BSO.
First rehearsal I was seated in The Best Seat in the House, but I didn’t even realize it until…..the downbeat. I heard the clarinets directly behind me. The trumpets just in the center at the back. And, for the first time, I heard…..strings. I had never experienced that sound so close and it caught me off guard. I had to fight the urge to put down my flute and just….experience. There was no going back. I staked my claim to that seat and I wasn’t leaving. I couldn’t believe how this surround-sound touched my soul.
That feeling has never let up. Sure, I can listen to an orchestra and have heard some of the best, live and in person. I still play in the occasional concert band or the pit for a musical. I’ll even do flute solos when asked, or play as part of a chamber ensemble. But nothing – NOTHING – will ever compare to that sound of sitting where I sit.
One time – and this is a true story – I was engrossed in the amazing music that I was hearing during a concert. I seemed to forget that I actually had a part to play. I think I was supposed to be counting rests but instead I just listened. ….until I was jolted from my reverie when I saw the conductor cueing me – several times - for what might have been five or six measures. I realized that I had missed my entrance (which was a piccolo solo) when I saw my conductor mouth the words “Yes, I’m pointing at YOU”. He didn’t seem to appreciate my enjoyment of the musical interpretation.
Of course I don’t blame my conductor for being mad and disappointed and I was really upset that I let him and the rest of the players down. As much as sitting in the Best Seat is enjoyment beyond compare, playing in an orchestra can’t be about me. It’s about the glorious sound we make when we are all committed to creating the music that the composer created with their talent and their gift. It’s about the contrast between what the audience hears as the orchestra is warming up – an interfusion of seemingly random sounds that become a focused driving force once that first downbeat is conducted. It’s about a group of talented, well-trained musicians who have come together, from a variety of experiences, and have chosen to play together because they love it. It’s about transmitting that feeling , by the way that we play together and the way we interpret the music with the unparalleled guidance and direction of our conductor, so that our audience can feel what we feel, in some small way. It’s what we create together.
But every time we play, I still feel I’m a little bit more privileged than any other member of the orchestra.
Because I’ve got the Best Seat in the House.
