RECEIPT REVIEW

Day 27!

I’m a bit surprised to be in the home stretch of this challenge already. I guess they say that time flies when you’re having fun. Today was spent finishing up getting my taxes ready for my accountant, which involved combing through every transaction of 2020, and sorting them into expense categories. 

There is something about going through this annual exercise that is a fascinating moment to put the previous calendar year in perspective. The review of all the inspiring dinners with colleagues, the beautiful cities I’ve toured through, and all I’ve learned from the research material that I’ve purchased always leaves me feeling warm with mostly happy memories. Sifting through the receipts of 2020 was slightly different, as there was a hard stop to the travel so early on in the year. 

Reviewing the first quarter of 2020, I was reminded that it was perhaps the busiest performance calendar I have ever sustained in my career. The year began with one of my most meaningful and giant endeavors to date, the Emerging Voices project with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Wrapped into that was the release of Clairières, as well as a survey of over a century of music over the course of 6 concerts in two weeks. The weeks following that saw me jumping in for concerts in Geneva, then hopping between performances in New York City, Houston, Miami, and Kansas City. I returned to New York for one final performance at WQXR to celebrate International Women’s Day, and a few days later, the world locked down.

Reliving that whirlwind few months through the pile of receipts left in their wake, I was so grateful for that high before this extended pause. It really is the primary reason I’ve been able to weather this storm so far – not just financially, but also spiritually. They really gave me so much strength and confidence to fend off my feelings of despair and abject terror at music being taken from us all. Now I just pray that the light at the end of the tunnel is as near as it seems might be.

NADIA BOULANGER: Versailles. My last performance with pianist Myra Huang before the lockdown last March.