Great Inspirations

Readers Digest this month has an article where famous people talk about other famous people who have been inspirations to them. One that caught my attention was the Chinese pianist Lang Lang who explained that opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti had inspired him because of his ability to make classical music interesting to such a wide audience. I regularly bemoan the influence of pop singers on the performance practices of singing just about anything in public these days. My favorite Christmas albums are the ones done by opera singers because the arrangements are so interesting. Electronics make live performance more and more manufactured. Yet a young Chinese pianist still has the desire to bring live music to lots of people. This is indeed encouraging. There is just nothing like live performance. I hope that it is always avilable for the rest of my days. And I'm not likely to stop doing my own small part arranging music for church that probably has not been heard in a few hundred years in the city of Baltimore - or hasn't been heard in its re-arranged form. Arranging music, if only for me for a small Wednesday service, keeps the minds working. This is a good thing. But I am happy to read about Lang Lang.