Two Kinds of Stakes
The Captain's friend BK offered to stake me to half of $500 if I would put up the other half. He would register on my behalf and I would play. Obviously he has NO idea what $250 means to us. I know he regularly has 10 times that in a "pot". Winning and losing large sums is another day's work for him. At least he understands very well the ephemeral nature of money!
On the other hand, today I am going to Jax to invest in a different kind of stake. I'm going to work at the Florida Federation of Music Clubs Festival, where young people (under 19) are adjudicated, critiqued and encouraged to continue their musical education. I expect it will be a grueling day - 11:30 to 8 or so, with an hour's travel time either way. Then tomorrow morning, three of MY students are being adjudicated, as well, so I must be there at 8:30 with our accompanist. They are all SO well prepared. I find it thrilling to work with them - beautiful young voices, exquisite music, and their palpable excitement. Beautiful music is at the heart of civilized life. This is MY stake in their future, and in a much broader sense, the future of civilization.
2 comments:
I wish your students good luck and hope they are sucessful.
Sorry I missed you on Saturday! I did see a long list of your students on the door of their jury room.
I monitored in a room for a couple of hours in the morning, then monitored in a different room (an odd little outpost for overflow) and then in the afternoon administered and graded theory tests.
I think the only bad result was a little charley-horse I got in my left leg from the chair I was sitting in in the theory room.
I had three students go this year, and they got good scores. Thanks to the judges and to the families of my students, and of course the hard work of the students themselves.
I even had a student enter the musical improvisation section, and the festival administrators told me that she is the first student to ever enter this section in Jacksonville!!
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