Blessings From the pandemic 2021
Blessings During the Pandemic 2021
by Sean Reusch
2021 - WOW!!!! What a challenging year to say the least. Personally, I vacillated back and forth from being angry, sad, and depressed to being excited, joyful, and hopeful. I was forced to slow down and reevaluate my life and my purpose. 2021 allowed me the time to put the oxygen mask on myself and focus on my body, mind and spirit - things, that over time, I began habitually to neglect. As challenging as it was, 2021 was also a year full of many blessing and transformative personal growth for me. I have a stronger relationship with GOD and got even closer to my wife, Bridget, and our kids, Miles and Ruby. I had more time to focus on my health and my families’ health through eating organic and whole foods, juicing, meditating, detoxing, taking nutritious supplements, exercising, and journaling. I tried lots of new, delicious, and healthy recipes. I had the time to become a better teacher and got to work with lots of new students. I made new friends this year and many of my old friendships grew even stronger. I read so much more! I had time to fix things in my playing and had more time to practice while doing it more efficiently. I fell more deeply in love with listening to music and listened to so many incredible old gems and lots of fantastic new recordings. I listened to so many informative and inspiring podcasts in 2021. I learned so much (and continue to learn) from courses on UDEMY including jazz theory, Logic Pro, and Final Cut Pro. I participated in 2 astounding workshops - the Jeremy Wilson and Karen Cubides’ Body, Mind, Spirit Workshop and Pat Sheridan’s Brass Gym.
Reflecting back on 2021, I am very proud of my students. They all accomplished so much in such a daunting year. In spite of all the problems with online learning, bad internet, not seeing friends, and dealing with so many awful things, my students amazed me with their resiliency, perseverance, curiosity, hard work, humor, and growth. Several students won positions in honor groups and became section leaders in bands. I had students go on to study music in college. Two students won national and international trombone competitions and one got to the final round of an ITF competition in 2021. The thing I love most about my students this past year is that they grew so much as people, deepened their love of music, and leaned valuable life lessons through music.
I am also proud of some things I accomplished in 2021 including becoming a Shires Artist, the redesign of my website, www.trombone101.com, lots of new content for my website, videos for my YouTube channel, writing and releasing 3 new books, being the Director of the Youth Workshop at the ITF 2021, writing and publishing several articles for various journals, being interviewed for a podcast and over Instagram Live, presenting masterclasses in South America and around the US, and interviewing many artists fro my page, An Artist’s Corner.
In conclusion, 2021 allowed me the time to be a better version of myself and I plan on continuing this in 2022. I will strive to be even more compassionate, kind, forgiving, patient, and loving. I am thrilled for the opportunities in 2022 and already have plans for my teaching, masterclasses, performances, videos, and some new books. I hope to work with many new students from around the world this year and plan on building more of a sharing environment in the trombone community for young students. I am definitely going to be more vulnerable in 2022 by sharing more of my playing (something I have struggled with but am getting better at doing!) and continue to share my ideas about music and teaching. I can’t wait to get together with my brothers in the Nittany Trombone Quartet and perform together in 2022. Finally, I am ecstatic to announce a lifelong goal of mine -we are starting an organic, regenerative farm with my family and friends in 2022!!!! Much more on that shortly. :)
Thank you to everyone who made 2021 so special for me. I wish you all the very best in 2022! I hope it is a year full of love, music, friendships, great health, and lots of personal growth.
With love,
Sean