Back of the head perspective, redux
Hit and Miss #459
Having a Sunday afternoon nap does wonders for… making you totally lose track of time and the things you need to do!! But also, Arthur and I both got to enjoy the chill afternoon sun, so no complaints.
It was a good week for getting out of the house—though that also meant its share of late nights. (Hence, perhaps, the nap.)
- Wednesday, I attended Shelley, Grimaud & Gershwin at the NAC. It’s Shelley’s last season with the NACO as music director, so we’ve been trying to get to his last few shows. It was also fun to see composer Kevin Lau come onstage after the performance of his Dark Angels concert suite, enjoying the audience’s cheers and excitedly shaking the hand of a cellist who played a key part in the piece. (The suite was a wonderful composition, pushing the orchestra’s range and drawing out some really unique sounds.)
- Friday, I attended Takuya Kuroda’s show at Jazz Fest. It’s rare that I get out to jazz shows here, but Kuroda’s jazz trumpet in the chill space of the NAC’s Fourth Stage was hard to pass up. Kuroda and his ensemble played pieces from his albums over the last 15 years. Excellent performances, a charming group, and a great crowd.
A theme ran between the two shows, of the central figure stepping back to watch others shine.
At the NAC, Shelley introduced the evening’s programme before stepping offstage for Sheila del Bosque Fuentes’s turn at the podium. From my vantage point, I could see him pop into the main box to watch. He returned to conduct the Gershwin, then stepped aside again to listen as Hélène Grimaud played a solo encore.
At Jazz Fest, Kuroda was an enthusiastic bandleader, stepping aside and gesturing at just the right moments to bring the audience to cheer and clap as members of the ensemble delivered their solos.
There’s something wonderful to this, of being in a position to just step back and enjoy the skill and talent of those around you. I’ve been privileged to get to do some of this at work recently, making space for others to step into work that I’d haven taken on more directly in the past. It can be hard, but then there are moments where you see the other person pull off something you’d never have thought to do, and the magic of teamwork shines through.
As I wrote this, something itched in the back of my mind that I’d written on a similar theme before. Had to scroll back to 2013, and excavate it from a previous blog with an expired SSL certificate, but, yup, here it is, “The back of the head perspective”. Be warned, it’s a very 2013 post!! (Especially the “takeaways” section at the end with sentences as headings, lol. Oh, how I love to be confronted with personal evidence of growth and change.)
There are links galore, but chocolate and ice cream beckon. All the best for the week ahead!
Lucas