I had a small world moment recently. I have a recording of a beloved piece, Ralph Vaughan WIlliams ‘The Lark Ascending.’ I performed this piece in my senior recital at university in Mississippi, nearly 15 years ago now. I worked on it for a year, had it memorised back to front by the end of it, and had spent hours listening to the recording. I grew to love that soloist’s interpretation but never bothered with finding out much about the performers as they weren’t household names and I guess I was just focused on my recital.
Lo and behold, The Lark Ascending came up on shuffle on my iPod recently and I smiled to myself, reminiscing about how much I still love the piece and had a look at the performers out of curiousity. And the soloist’s name was very familiar…
It was the same name as the conductor of my symphony orchestra who is also a professional violinist. His name isn’t super common and the orchestra on the recording was in the right region of the UK.
And I thought, really can it be? Well with a bit of internet detective work, I found that, yes, yes it can.
So I am now playing under the baton of the same violinist who is the ‘voice’ on my much loved and listened to Naxos recording of Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending. I haven’t plucked up the courage to tell him or even properly introduce myself yet but maybe someday!
It really is a small world.
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