Growing up

Every now and then, one of my roommates plays a recording of a breathtaking rendition of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite "Scheherazade" taken from a performance at Carnegie Hall last spring. I'm no expert in classical music, but even I could tell that the orchestra, particularly the violin soloist, performed with an emotion deeper than that of many of the orchestras that I have heard on the radio or seen in person. So I was quite taken aback when my roommate told me that the orchestra playing was his local high school honors orchestra, and he was the featured violin soloist.

Had I known beforehand that, in high school, he practiced over two hours a day, the technical skill and strength of feeling obvious in the recording would not have been as surprising. But I had no prior reason to believe that my roommate was such an exceptional violinist. Though he was considering becoming a music major when he applied, he switched his concentration to ORFE before coming to campus and abandoned the violin after being rejected from the Princeton University Orchestra (PUO). Before he played the recording for my roommates and me, we had almost forgotten that he was ever musically inclined.

Since he played the recording, my other roommates and I have urged him to pick up the violin again. Every time the subject comes up, we get the sense that he would truly like to play but does not have time to balance consistent practices with his slew of new extracurricular activities. Finally, for some unknown reason, he dusted off his violin last Saturday for the first time since his unsuccessful PUO audition in September. His playing was rusty at first, but after several hours his tone sounded nearly as beautiful as it sounds on the Carnegie Hall recording.

As I sat there taking in the free concert, something about the scene brought tears to my eyes. I don't know whether it was the beauty of the music or the fact that my roommate looked younger than he had in months that did the trick, but I suspect that it also had something to do with the parallels that I saw between his situation and mine. Though I certainly was never Carnegie Hall caliber, I too played an instrument in high school — the saxophone — that I have hardly touched since being rejected from a University ensemble.

In Sunday's Washington Post Magazine, journalist Gene Weingarten wrote a piece that provoked the same emotion I felt while watching my roommate play. The article is about an experiment that Weingarten organized in which Joshua Bell, a world-famous violinist who was recently awarded the Avery Fisher prize for being America's top classical musician, went undercover as a street musician during the morning rush hour. Stationed at the exit of a busy Metro station in the heart of a maze of government buildings, Bell played 43 minutes worth of the greatest violin music ever written. Over 1,000 people walked by in the time he was playing, but only a small handful took the time to stand around and watch for any period of time. Amazingly, many passersby didn't even acknowledge his presence.

In a way, some of us on campus were presented with the same opportunity as those lucky commuters when Joshua Bell performed at McCarter Theater two months ago. Like all his shows, it was sold out, but there was a recital beforehand that anyone could have attended. If asked about a concert, most students would probably respond that they don't normally check out what's going on at McCarter or didn't have the time to go. As in my roommate's situation, our commitments often leave little time for our interest in the fine arts.

I can only hope that this isn't an inevitable consequence of growing up. I'm idealistic enough to believe that it doesn't have to be, especially for those of us who are fortunate enough to have artistic resources and creative outlets readily available to us. Weingarten's experiment and my roommate's example serve as a reminder for all of us who feel as though we might be surrendering our passions to our obligations. We should all make a greater effort to take the occasional break from our busy lives and indulge our interests; otherwise, we might never know what talents we're ignoring or what opportunities we're passing up. Michael Medeiros is a freshman from Bethesda, Md. He may be reached at mmedeiro@princeton.edu.