After years and years playing lead trumpet in bands of all sorts, at my ripe (unidentified) age I now find myself playing in a classical orchestra around the corner from where Yolanda and I live. Yolanda has a degree in music and plays the flute, while practicing as an architect her entire career. We met long ago in those “in between” years.

She convinced me to join the DC Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble of the DC Chamber Group on MeetUp.com. You can meet with just about anyone doing just about anything through this social media website. It’s pretty casual, which is at times frustrating, but under our new conductor, Randall Stewart, we have a chance of sounding…OK.

We played our second concert together this past May. We played the “Bruschino” by Rossini, Dvorak’s Czech Suite (beautiful, highly recommend) and Haydn’s Symphony No. 104. We were even bold enough to invite our good friends, Marianne and Jeff.

Last concert we played the “Septett Militare” by Hummel, which had the unusual instrumentation of piano, flute, clarinet, trumpet, violin, cello and bass. It is one of the few chamber pieces with a flute and trumpet (if there is anyone out there that knows of others, do tell!). That was great fun. Tough piano part, so kudos to Andrew.

Rehearsing Hummel Septet in C Major “Military”

We start up again in September, so stay tuned for more musical adventures!