Thoughts from a Musician's Heart

WITH A TWIST by James Markey

Throughout my life, God has often answered my prayers “with a twist.”  When the Pittsburgh Symphony appointed me as their Principal Trombonist at the age of twenty, he taught me to lean on him as I learned how to play both very loud AND in tune (a skill I hadn’t yet developed).  Five years later as a member of the New York Philharmonic, I developed a multi-year inability to play soft and high.  The severity of the problem caused me enough angst about my future to pursue leaving the Philharmonic to become an organist; God closed the door on my proposed “escape,” giving me the time to trust in Him as I re-learned this skill.  Most recently, He sent another blessing “with a twist.”  

Around Halloween 2024, I was preparing for a televised solo recital in Japan when a small canker sore began to grow in the middle of my top lip.  Of course, playing a brass instrument involves squeezing flesh between bone and metal; so one can imagine how, within a day or two, many things that I needed to be there regarding my playing (upper register, lower register, loud, soft, etc.) were suddenly gone due to the swelling.

It’s not often that a bass trombonist performs a recital for recorded television, and I was grateful to God for sending me this performance opportunity.  Yet this canker sore really scared me — and I wondered aloud why God would make this happen!  And through my fear, God revealed to me what I hadn’t seen:  my anxiety over the event and my growing lack of trust in Him.  He reminded me that He alone is my salvation, and asked me as he has so many other times in my life to trust in Him.

God gave me the courage to write to my representative to tell them the issue and that there was the possibility I would need to change the programming or cancel.  I stopped practicing altogether to avoid injury, even though it meant not practicing at all in the ten days leading up to my departure.  And in these two acts, my trust moved from my own preparation to God’s providence.

By the time I boarded the plane for the Japan with the sore finally subsiding, He had already set my heart to focus on Him, earnestly praying that He would work through me; and that he would help others not to hear me or my music, but instead to experience a bit of Him through me as a musical missionary.  

My concert proceeded as planned.  The recital audience responded, even though my performance wasn’t flawless.  But God had already reminded me that, in the end, performances are never really about us, or whatever flaws we might perceive, or even about how the audience might respond.  They are opportunities to share in the joy and wonder of Him and His wonderful Gifts, whether performing or enjoying someone else’s performance.  And I’m grateful that all it took was a canker sore…

James Markey

Bass Trombonist, Boston Symphony Orchestra

Faculty, New England Conservatory