Saturday, March 06, 2010
A note on what is upcoming next with the orchestra experience. The local high school freshman orchestra has a variety of talented and gifted players. Violins, cellos and all sorts of other little instruments will play their hearts out. But the driving beat, the force for our chamber orchestra is the ABU (the Aspergers Bass Unit).
Both of the bass players in the chamber orchestra have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) that meets the current criteria for Aspergers. Both of the bass players are big and blond. Really when they take the stage they look like two Nordic brothers with wild hair on bass. Sometimes I think they give this group better grades than they deserve because the bass players look like that might wreak havoc if they were unhappy with the judges scoring. More often think how much of a challenge it must be for the orchestra director to handle two guys that are 6 foot plus tall, 170 pounds plus who are quiet and somewhat intransigent (euphemism) as he is working up an arrangement. Still for whatever reason the ABU works.
The performance is in about an hour. I will post afterward how things have gone. It is important as least for me personally to remember a diagnosis of ASD is not something that stops the world. Primus plays hockey, is in an orchestra and has a devilish sense of humor. It is just navigating the shoals of interpersonal relationships such as misinterpretation and intolerance that make ASD the challenge it is.
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