FATE

My first email this morning was from a staff person with the symphony. It's symphony week this week (last concert of the season--yay!), so I wasn't overly concerned about what this particular person might be emailing. She tends to go overboard on that sort of stuff. This one was different, though. She asked if any of us had seen this morning's paper. I hadn't, so I went online. There, I read that a plane crash on Saturday in NW Montana killed a pilot, two skydiving instructors and two students who were going to tandem jump with the instructors.

The two students were symphony musicians from Great Falls and frequent players with our orchestra. Two outstanding musicians, both in their mid-20s, engaged to be married at the end of the summer. They were leaving Montana at the end of May--he was to go to Calgary to play french horn up there; she was heading to Michigan (I believe) to work on a doctorate degree in oboe performance. This was their last fun Montana adventure before they left.

In a state with a small population such as Montana, chances are good that you know someone who knows someone who is involved in things like this. Add to the mix that most of the orchestral musicians in the state at least know of everyone else, and this one is a bitter pill to swallow. And devestating for the Great Falls music community, in particular. Godspeed to you both, Jenny and Kyle...

And the FATE part? Most of you know Rachel, she of the currently blank blog... I knew that she had planned on going up there to do the same thing herself this month. I talked with her this morning. As FATE would have it, she had originally booked THE EXACT SAME FLIGHT/TIME/COMPANY, but decided to postpone it for a week. As you can imagine, she's postponing the idea for awhile now.

FATE--it's a fickle thing...