This comes from the blog of Bob Lauver of the Pittsburgh Symphony.
"enjoy"
A chip in our armour... - Bob Lauver
Due to a freak accident, our horn section is getting a chance to display its depth this week.
Don't panic, there isn't any long-term damage, but our Assistant Principal Horn, Zach Smith, did himself an injury about a week ago. He played on his lip for a few days thinking that the affected area would begin to heal and improve as he played, but on Saturday morning he realized that his lip was going to need some time apart from the rigors of horn playing to get the healing process started. Since I was sitting next to him in the rehearsals, I moved over to principal on the Debussy and Joe Rounds read the 2nd part. Then Bill played Dvorak 7 without an assistant. By the end of the concert we all got the chance to feel Zach's absence in a very real way. The concert went great, but we had the feeling that we had just lugged a heavy weight up a steep hill. It demonstrated to us uninjured section mates just how interdependent we all are. It also showed us again (something we already knew) that Zach is our secret weapon. We did just fine Saturday, but we're a better section when everybody's in the line-up.
As I have said before, our horn section is eager to play all the time and nobody shows it more than Zach. This simple reality makes it all the more frustrating for him when the cause of his injury is taken into account. I think that first I'll make up some glamourous story of how he did it.......let's see...he was working out.....first lifting weights, then on to jumping rope......getting warmed up for a sparring session in which he took a shot in the chops from a world-class boxing trainer....yeah, that's it. Now for the truth.......he skinned his lip on a tortilla chip! Just when you start believing that the world is becoming a safer place (cynically sarcastic observation), the next threat jumps out of the bag and bites you in the lip. In this case it jumped out of a box. When Zach told Bill what had happened the first thing out of Bill's mouth was, "What brand?"......"Abuelito, from Costco" Zach answers, "oooo those are rough chips, but good." Bill is the Iron Chef nacho king......he knows tortilla chips.
This week in order to give Zach the time he needs to get better, we're all shifting around to try to spread out the work load a little in his absence. We're playing Finlandia, the Sibelius Violin Concerto, and Beethoven 3. We've hired Alex George (a student of Bill's) to help us out. This is how the section will be lined up this week:
Finlandia: Ron, Joe, me, Alex (Joe and Alex might flip-flop to save Joe for lead on the concerto)
Violin Cto: Joe, Alex, Ron, me (normally we'd put an extra on the end of the section, but the Violin Concerto has a juicy 4th horn part, so I'm hogging it).
Beethoven: Bill (Joe asst), me, Ron
Get better Zach......we're missing you