[Schilkeman]

I remember coming across, what I found out later to be, Beethoven’s 9th on the radio when I was about 12. I just sat there and listened to the whole thing. “Long hair” music was not a part of my upbringing at all, and much to the chagrin of my family when I went on to pursue it. (They wanted me to play Jazz, but my relationship with Jazz is a whole other topic.)

I got into film scores and classical at about the same time, so I think they sort of fed each other. I fell hard for Star Wars when the Special Editions came out, and I recall playing a concert of space music in 7th grade. There was a trumpet solo for Luke’s theme that I was not good enough to get, and I determined that that would not happen again, so I brought my horn home and practiced all summer. It indeed did not happen again. I got a piano book of John Williams music and would play all the themes on trumpet. This is when I became aware of the breadth of his work.

I also taught myself piano to play his music, which funnily enough, I did not understand that bass clef was different from treble, so played all the left-hand stuff in the wrong key (or really, no key). Schindler’s List sounded weird, man! Fun times.

Similarly, the first time I listened to Mahler was a couple of years later. Any thoughts I had of being a composer kind of disappeared that night, as I listened to Bernstein lead the 1st symphony, twice, straight down. Someone had apparently already written the music I heard in my head, and done it much better than I ever could.

In music school, I learned the mastery of Haydn, Handel, and Bach, and learned to even better appreciate the mastery of Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler. I still struggle with opera lol.

I still only really care about scores in the tradition of Western art music, and while I spent a good decade of my life listening mostly to the 20th and 21st centuries’ best and not-so-best pop music, I have all but completely returned to the sustaining, nurturing, beautiful bosom of classical. What a smart and pretty girl.