Musicians are funny.

I went down to Salem last night to catch the Hilary Hahn concert. There are .6 degrees of separation (rather than the customary 6) between any two people in the musical world. For me and Hilha, as I like to call her, well, we're practically like that. (I'm crossing my fingers... there's probably an emoticon for that.)

I have played in various orchestras accompanying her as a soloist, and for a while in Baltimore I taught a schizophrenic who was a little obsessed with her. He was annoyed when I said I thought I'd like to hear her Bach when she was in her sixties rather than however young she was when she recorded them. I think she was a toddler of some sort at the time.

Not only have I played in her general vicinity and known people who REALLY love her, my friend was also in town for the Oregon Symphony violin auditions and she once took Hilha white water rafting. So, like I said, we're like that.

She played Tchaikovsky and I was truly impressed. Her bow seemed to be an amplifier for her lovely violin (a Vuillaume?) and she was able to do unreal things with a few inches of that sucker. I love to see things like that, to enjoy it all the more fully for knowing that it's no easy feat. Musically, she made some things so new in the concerto- some spots where she slowed in such a way that there was a sparkling classiness in the play between solo and orchestra. I would love to hear that for days. Lovely, nuanced, silky. I'm really glad we went, it was so much FUN even for a jaded old thing like myself.

So when I got home, I decided I'd check out the website posted in her bio and I found this:
http://www.hilaryhahn.com/favorites/fav_02.shtml

She also has a YouTube channel I'll be showing the boys, and a Twitter feed from the perspective of her violin case. A true music geek, and you have to love that.