For example, last Friday, March 11, we were coming to the end of our first of a half dozen rehearsals that we will have for our upcoming Dramatic Brass concert at a new venue, Parkdale United, On Friday, March 25 (shameless plug) where we’ll be releasing our fabulous 4^th CD entitled Brass Britannia (another shameless plug). As often happens when we’re intensely involved in our work, carefully crafting each phrase, attending to each minute detail, there comes a time where things start to…well, come off the rails…we start to get a wee bit punchy, perhaps because of all of that blowing we do, loss of oxygen, etc.. Our fearless conductor, Alain Cazes, an excellent tuba player in his own right, doing his best to keep us focused to the very last note, gets a call on his cell. Meanwhile, his darling wife Louise has accompanied him to Ottawa from their hometown of Montreal and she’s sitting quietly off to one side of the rehearsal room. Someone blurts out, “It’s your wife! She’s wondering why you’re not spending more time with her!” Laughter ensues. His reply, “Shh, not so loud. It’s my other wife!” Amidst more howls of laughter, he then adds with his customary huge, warm-hearted grin, “Hey folks, we’re supposed to look like we’re working here!”

Well, to me, that just about sums it up. I feel so very blessed to be with co-workers whose attitudes are such that, as long as we’re making the best music we can, we see the making and sharing of music as a wonderful form of therapy and multiple doses of laughter are definitely the best medicine. We do take our music-making very seriously, but not ourselves too seriously and I think we’ve been successful in communicating the essence of that to our audience all of these years, many of whom faithfully attend all of our concerts. For this we are eternally grateful.

Thanks VideoManOttawa! The videos turned-out nicely!