Although it is the case as I write this that tax season has started in the US, and my day-job has commensurately stepped up, that’s a relatively recent development. Prior to that, the holidays made their demands; I volunteer with a number of non-profit groups in the town where I live, including Lights Spectacular Hill Country Style (for which donations are most welcome), and working with those groups took up a lot of my time in late November and December. It was good to do it, and I will be pleased to do it again, but it was a lot of doing.

After the New Year, however, the non-profit work more or less wrapped up (for a bit; things are starting back up again soon enough). My attention shifted to something I’d not done in a while: performing publicly as a saxophonist. That I have done such things has not been a secret; I write a fair bit about having been a bandsman, having played as an alumnus of a high school band program, and my continued engagement with music programs, after all. Still, I’d not played in public in a bit, most of my work being just puttering around on an inherited bari in my office, maybe playing alongside my tubist daughter as she practiced up for one thing or another, and it’s a different thing to be on stage in front of people than it is to be in the background helping others along.

On 3 January 2026, I had the privilege of joining the Symphony of the Hills in my hometown of Kerrville, Texas, performing in a saxophone quartet supporting the group’s pops concert. How I got involved is something of a random event; I had posted news about some upcoming work, and an old friend of the family saw it and reached out. Said friend is someone I’ve known since I was around my daughter’s age, someone who’d been band-mates with my father and great uncle and who had tutored me (on flute, in the event) when I still entertained the idea that I would grow up to be a band director. I’d gotten along well with him through my teens and early twenties, but being away from the Hill Country during my mid-twenties and into my thirties, the connection that had been in place…attenuated.

It’s not uncommon, of course; people move, people lose touch, even in a time of easy social media connectivity. What is uncommon is that, decades later, a post about an entirely unrelated topic will prompt a job offer. What’s perhaps more uncommon is that the person accepting that offer will practice up for a few weeks–first on etudes, then for around a week on the actual performance materials–and break the proverbial rust from his fingers to be welcomed as a peer not only among the other saxophonists, but also among the ensemble, more generally. All of that happened, though, and, yes, everybody clapped. (It was an orchestra concert; it’s what happens. And it was reported upon.)

All of this is to say that I enjoyed getting to play with the groups, both the sax quartet and the broader orchestra. I hope to be able to do so again, and to play in other performances. It was good for me to pick up my horn again and practice up, and I mean to maintain the discipline of doing so; I enjoy playing, and I know from experience and observation that winding a horn is a good way to keep the lungs healthy. (It also sets a good example for my daughter, who herself has a performance coming up as I write this.) Even if I don’t manage to get in front of other people again (although I think I might well), it’s good to engage in arts, to do more than simply passively consume what is shoveled out from the hind-ends of slop-makers, and there needs to be more good in the world.

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