David Dickey, Storyteller

David Dickey

DAVID DICKEY, BM in Oboe Performance, BA in Vocal Performance, UMD School of Music

It was the summer of my senior year of high school. I was at the Eastern Music Festival, playing the second oboe part in Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony, which I had never heard done before, which is stupid because it’s such a staple, such an amazing work. So the first time I was hearing the piece was as I was playing it.

I was just rolling with this music, this rollercoaster that I can’t believe, it just caught me off guard.

There is one part in the fourth movement where the orchestra is doing this crazy cacophony of sounds, all the winds are blaring, repeating this high A, and it’s really unsettling and alarming. But then — and I had no idea this was coming at all, I was just reading the music — the entire orchestra comes together in this amazing triumphant melody and when it first happened I was like, “Oh my god, what’s going on right now?” Then I was just rolling with this music, this rollercoaster that I can’t believe, it just caught me off guard. I remember having chills while I was playing and I didn’t know if I could keep playing it correctly because I was just so overwhelmed.

I had never experienced anything like that. I was thinking, “What’s going to happen to me ten years from now, 20 years from now, playing music?” And then, I just knew: I’m in it to win it. I’m in this field to stay.