I
never wanted to be an orchestral musician. The perfectionism required in auditions mixed with the subjectivity of judges meant that I could never be myself on the cello. I would always be playing ‘in the style’ of the panel’s preferred orchestral sound, so that perhaps they might accept and validate me in the form of a regular pay cheque.
As a cellist, I felt pressure to explain what I planned to ‘do’ with myself. Even though I never intended to have a career playing in an orchestra, I felt pressured to practise audition excerpts and learn the expositions of standard concertos.
But then, in 2020, the pandemic hit and the world shut down. I didn’t have any musicians around me to play with, and the thought of Zoom rehearsals made me want to scream. No one knew what the future held for orchestras or chamber ensembles; yet I felt an inexplicable sense of freedom. I could finally do whatever I wanted. And what I wanted to do was to improvise.