I’m a link in the chain

I've just had the best rehearsal I can remember in a long time. It was a rehearsal with my NVOT Wind Symphony, coming at a point in the year when I am just about as over-booked, over-tired, and over-used as one can be. Our production of Man of La Mancha opens with a preview matinee tomorrow, I'm in the middle of a rehearsal cycle with the Westchester Symphonic Winds, marching season and registration looms, I'm aching from going to the gym for the first time in weeks, and it's tax season. How much can one take?!?!
But the truth of this is that I owe a great deal of my excitement and rehearsal productivity to two fine conductors at Montclair State University — Dr. Tom McCauley and Paul Hostetter. Tom rehearsed the Wind Symphony in a clinic on February 12 during the MSU Band Festival, and Paul rehearsed my String Ensemble yesterday, on the first day after our winter break. Both rehearsals pushed my stduents' creative and musical capabilities, as well as my own. I came away with new ideas and new inspirations to work new angles in pursuit of better intonation, more creative excitement, and higher personal goals. I know these ideas will also lend themselves to my Concert Band and Westchester Symphonic Winds rehearsals — in the end so many people benefit from just a small amount of time spent in these inspiring clinics.
This has come about only because I willingly put myself on the line. It is not a comfortable moment when you invite a respected conductor to stand before your group. It leaves me feeling open and vulnerable. But I've learned over the years — first from attending and running conducting symposia, and later from taking my NVOT ensembles to adjudication festivals/clinics — that "nothing ventured, nothing gained" is a fundamental to moving yourself forward.
The best part is not knowing what good I have done to inspire that one student in the ensemble who is now juiced because of this. Even if this happens with just one student each day, the possible effect is magnificent.