Music – A Universal Language

What is it about music that evokes images–drums pounding as a shark cuts through the water, flutes carried on the wind as birds twitter, excitement building as trumpets sound, a loved one murmuring endearments as an oboe emerges from behind the violins?

Whatcom Symphony Orchestra created all those images and more this a weekend ago and I was transported. Audience oohs and  laughter suggested I wasn’t the only one who recognized and relished the offerings provided by those volunteer musicians.

When next they play, I’ll be there, eager to fly again with the Valkyries or to duck when  helicopters come into view over a war-ravaged valley, to scramble to shore to avoid the shark’s teeth,  to soar over the Grand Canyon, or simply to listen as the duck quacks in the belly of the wolf and wonder when the hunters would dispatch the wolf and save the duck.