My wish to do my semester abroad in Milano goes back to 2015, when the EXPO was based in this wonderful city. I played a whole week with a big band (Landesjugendjazzorchester Sachsen-Anhalt) at the world exposition. Sadly, we had very little time to have a look around the city-centre. Nevertheless, I really liked what I saw. After detours through Cologne, a South-European-caravan-street-music-tour, Namibia and of course at least Karlsruhe, I finally found my way back to this city.
I never travel without my trumpet.
So I had to have my trumpet with me when I came back to this North-Italian city. Only two days after my arrival, I met a professor who made it his mission to bring music to Universitá Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. I participated in a course called “Linguaggi Musicali”, translated as musical languages or the languages of music, in response to the question “Is music a language?”. A voluntary part of this very interesting course was participating in a practical musical activity at the university. I had the honour to have a leading role in the concert.
The 8th of November was the big day. We planned to play a trumpet-concert of the famous German composer Georg Philip Telemann, guided by strings and piano in the first part followed by traditional and modern jazz pieces in the second part, accompanied by a jazz pianist and a singer. We had many difficult rehearsals but tremendously looked forward to the concert.
Then something horribly happened.
On the night before the concert I suddenly fell sick. I cannot remember the last time I was sick, maybe it was in primary school. The problem with being a soloist is that the concert cannot take place without you. My ensemble-partner decided that they would still go on to play the concert on this day with me.
The concert was announced in the two most important newspapers of North-Italy, so there were already some listeners at the small church where the concert was being held at, when I arrived. I was privately chauffeured all over the city and pumped with medicine. I played the concert. It was okay, I guess. I can’t really remember. After the concert I was chauffeured back home and slept for 14 hours. I can’t remember ever sleeping this long!
Hopefully I will come back to Milan again. My ‘like’ for this place changed to ‘love’. Wonderful City. Milano.
Article by Ruben Bauer (Arts and Cultural Management, 5th semester)