This experiment addresses a challenge with youth orchestras that perform Ode to Joy. I work with youth orchestras, especially “Music for Social Impact” youth orchestras around the world, but my background is as a theater teaching artist.

Whatever you do, don’t write essays about creativity, truth or love—they are guaranteed to fail. The subjects defy definition, and if you can’t start with something solid, you can’t arrive somewhere useful. At least that’s what I told myself.

I love coming down from the wild after a week. It feels as adventurous to encounter the “normal” world as it did to head out into bearland or mountain lionville.