After I left the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in the fall of 2014, I had to answer the question, “Why did you leave?” many times. The simple answer is that I need time and space away from the orchestra to grow as a person and as a musician. Allow me to elaborate.

As you may know, orchestra percussionists generally spend more time counting rests and waiting for entrances than playing actual music. Despite getting relatively good parts during my time with the UCBSO, I still encountered rehearsals where I sat for two hours and only played eleven notes on the tam-tam before cleaning up and going home. The few times I played in a high school orchestra, people urged me to switch to band because the percussion parts were better. I defended the orchestra back then, pointing out that even if I was sitting around for most of the piece, I got to listen to grand symphonies and the lush sounds of strings.I joined the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra my freshman year without a second thought. I had been playing in ensembles for all my life and joining orchestra in college was only the natural choice for me. During my two years with UCBSO, I still enjoyed incredible masterpieces while counting my hundreds of measures of rest. But as one semester stretched into four, each 7:30-10 pm rehearsal that I attended on Tuesday and Thursday nights began to feel longer and longer. I would look down at my watch after what felt like fifteen minutes and discover that only five minutes had passed.