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Young Hopefuls

OK, so here in England we have entered a second lock down, not as severe as the first one but still enough to stop the music! It's made me think about all sorts of things. Like many people I suppose this year has concentrated my mind and led me to a lot of introspection. A few years ago one of my friends from way back in our youth orchestra days observed that somehow we had gone from being the hope for the future to has-beens without actually achieving anything of substance in between. I know just what he meant and at the time I couldn't help agreeing with him. Now I'm not so sure, I'm getting so much enjoyment/fulfilment from conducting that I have been reassessing my whole musical life. Although playing is great I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I am a better musician than instrumentalist. Technically there is much that I would like to be able to do that is beyond me, but I am finding it so invigorating to be able to help others produce a better performance.

I miss my rehearsals and everything about communal music making, but I think most of all I miss performing. At heart I think I am a bit of a show off, I like to be the centre of attention, I like to be recognised and acknowledged. This is reflected not just in my music making, but in pretty much every other aspect of my life. I will often find that I am the "front" for organisations I work with and I enjoy that!

2014 in Croydon Central Library

Normally by this time of the year I would have played 20 - 30 performances, many of them I should have been conducting, We would have had Croydon Pride, we would have celebrated the Transgender day of Visibility, who knows how often I would have spoken and been photographed. I believe the last two events I spoke at were around the LGBT History Month back in February ~ since then it just feels as though life has been on hold.

In any normal year I would now have been preparing for the Transgender Day Of Remembrance, TDOR, this will be the first year for a long, long time that this will not have been marked with an event in Croydon, as I seem have led every event since 2012 I was planning for 2020 to be my last, but given this years hiatus I suspect that I may well do at least one more. One thing is for sure, for the foreseeable future I am sure that there will be a continued need for the day to be marked and murdered trans people to be remembranced.