SOME FUN FACTS FROM MY CAREER!
Favourite moment: I've been lucky to have performed a large part of the flute and piccolo solos in the classical repertoire but the flute solo, Leia's theme from John Williams' Star Wars is the one I will remember most. John Williams' ability to write a score which conveys a feel for the subject is unparalleled and this is the perfect example.
Least favourite moment: Very occasionaly opening the flute case up at a rehearsal and finding it empty.
Most awkward moment: When the conductor was literally giving the upbeat in a concert for a world premier piece and my contact lens moved blurring my vision. I had to play roughly what I remembered from rehearsals but I had no chance as the composition consisted of a series of short notes placed in exact moments for the wind section within each bar with a time signature of 7/16, much to the amusement of my colleagues.
Scariest moment: Sight reading Rimsky-Korsakov's Le Coq d'Or with 1 hour notice for the Royal Opera, London where at that time I had never played before. It is a mesmerisingly beautiful opera. Luckily it went really well and afterward they asked me back for the full 3 week run. But I remember later thinking I had actually seen the excerpts while a student; I had looked at the page and thought, pff, I'm never going to have to play that and moved on to the next excerpt! In reality though, when it came to actually performing it, not knowing what was about to come was maybe a blessing!
Funniest moment: We were in a small restored monastry in Batignano, Tuscany putting on a production of Kurt Weill's Seven Deadly Sins. Because of the heat these operas started from roughly 10.30pm or later depending on when everyone in the audience had arrived. The small orchestra was on a balcony out of sight so we were wearing varying degrees of swimming costumes to keep cool when an enormous dragonfly landed on the shoulder of the oboist to my left during a small solo. To her credit she finished the solo before panicking and swearing.