burnout?

Relaxing during some extended time off can begin with a period where one’s head is still spinning. That’s how I’m feeling this morning.

Hope college spring break officially begins tomorrow morning but I don’t have any Thursday classes so my break begins today.

I have accepted a gig to accompany a high school cello player for Solo and Ensemble which is a week from this Saturday. He is playing the first movement of the Brahms cello sonata, so I will be scrambling to have it ready. A pleasant distraction.

Haven’t been paid for the Hope gig from last week. I will email the conductor tomorrow. That will be seven days since the gig.

I changed my postlude yesterday. I did have a boisterous postlude based on the closing hymn, “Lift High the Cross.” Instead I decided to play another quiet piece like last week. “Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund” BWV 621 from Bach’s Orgelbüchlein. No preludes in Lent, since we will be using a gathering refrain.

This morning I am feeling very cynical about my artistic relationship to Grace church. So what the fuck. Even though my organ playing seems to be not very apparent to parishioners, I persist and schedule excellent music and play it as well as possible. But sometimes it’s hard not to feel that I am persisting in a dying and unwanted art.

I’m hoping that in the holes where I usually would be doing ballet classes in the next week or so, I can recuperate and lose a little of this burnout.