Do you find traveling glamorous? Sitting around in airports, waiting in lines, carrying luggage, eating in unfamiliar places, sleeping in unfamiliar beds? Well imagine doing that for about ten months a year, and imagine doing it alone, while having to prove, over and over again every single week, that you’re one of the best in the world at what you do. And when you’ve imagined all that, and added in lots more hours spent alone practicing, you’ve imagined the glamorous life of a touring soloist. In fact, talk with today’s artists and then read the letters of famous musicians from long ago and you’ll notice a common thread… fatigue. The saving grace? The music. Big paychecks are nice, of course, but thank goodness for the music. Because when a performer is on stage, fatigue is forgotten, and there’s no more “place”—no Hong Kong or Helsinki or Houston. Each time, the whole world simply becomes—the music.
This has been A Minute with Miles – a production of South Carolina Public Radio, made possible by the J.M. Smith Corporation.
