"Master Class"

Today I attended a "master class" taught by clarinet expert David Shifrin. It's basically like a clarinet lesson, for three UO students, in public. They each played a piece they've learned, then he gave them friendly input, where - although they'd sounded fine to my untrained ear before - now they sounded even better. And whenever he picked up his own clarinet, WHOA. Yes, when you've been playing at the highest level for five times longer than these students had been playing at all, you are noticeably better, even to someone like me.

One of D's clarinet teacher's students was among the three, so it was really cool to get to see him do this. D. himself didn't go, but everyone who's anyone in the local world of clarinets was there (except D's teacher, who regretfully had to be out of town today).