When to Leave Your Dream Job
After telling my colleagues in Eighth Blackbird that I was leaving the group, my whole body heaved with grief, as if I’d ended a marriage. So why did I leave?
Author: Tim Munro
Tim Munro is a Brisbane-born, Chicago-based, triple-Grammy-winning musician. His diverse work as a flutist, speaker, writer and teacher is united by a single goal: to draw audiences into an engrossing and whimsical musical world. Tim was the flutist and co-artistic director of the chamber ensemble eighth blackbird from 2006 till 2015. Tim’s solo performances are “captivating,” “bravura,” “charismatic,” “brilliant” (The New York Times), “engrossing” (Chicago Tribune) and “brilliantly clear and beautifully balanced” (Sydney Morning Herald). You can watch Tim in this recent performance of Christopher Cerrone's radiantly beautiful work, Liminal Highway.
Articles
Symphony for a Broken Orchestra
This project makes my heart sing. The Philadelphia School District owns more than 1000 broken musical instruments, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang, in collaboration with Temple Contemporary (whose mission is “to re-imagine the social function of art”), is creating a “symphony” for these broken instruments.
Kate Soper
There is a generation of young composers who have created an entirely new sound. Here, voice becomes instrument, and instrumentalists become vocalists, a combination that is startlingly, thrillingly new.
Patricia Kopatchinskaja
I’m always on the lookout for practitioners who don’t simply rewrite the rulebook, but set it alight, watch it burn.
Nathalie Joachim
Nathalie is the flutist of eighth blackbird (and therefore, I suppose, my “successor!”), but she is much, much more: not just a skilled instrumentalist, but also a composer, singer and producer, whose hip hop-influenced flute duo, Flutronix, has taken the normally stuffy flute world by storm – a true 21st century musician.
The Kilroys
(I’m sneaking an interloper into this list: The Kilroys is a theater organization, but I strongly believe that its lessons are important ones for the world of classical music.)
