Mood Mix Danny Flam

THE START OF MY BRASS JOURNEY

I was in fourth grade when a brass quintet came to my school. The trombone looked like the most fun instrument to play, and I immediately wanted one. I started learning brass the next year. Before that, I’d been taking recorder and piano lessons. As a teenager I joined a youth orchestra, I played in the Air Force orchestras during my IDF service, and then as a reservist in the Rabbinate Choir with Mona Rosenblum. After the army, I joined the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Just recently, my father, who is 88 now, looked at me and said, “They pay you for this?” After all these years, he’s still wondering how I’m making a living playing my trombone. I actually have a degree in computer science, and I have done some work in it, but music is my calling. I’m on the trumpet more than the trombone nowadays, but I’m pretty happy playing either, because I feel that this is what I’m here in this world to do.

MY MOST MEANINGFUL FEEDBACK

There was a special night about 20 years ago when I played with MBD at a concert conducted by Moshe Laufer in the Central Hotel in Jerusalem. I still remember the electricity of that night. The crowd had incredible energy and warmth, and at the end of the evening, a non-Jew came over to me and said, “I’m part of a visiting Christian delegation, and I have never felt anything so magical. It’s like G-d is in the room!”

HOW I KEEP UP MY SKILLS

I have to constantly move forward, otherwise people will be saying, “Oh, him again!” I try to do something new every day. I frequently buy a new microphone or a new instrument, play a new tune, or test a new way of playing, because for me, music has to be new and fresh.