We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tara Rozanski. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tara below.
Alright, Tara thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?
Thanks for having me! I think my motivation for my music and the piccolo, the very instrument I love to create art from, is highly misunderstood, overlooked, and mischaracterized. Having nicknames like “devil stick” and “shrieking twig” are synonymous with cacophonous sounds. My goal as a creative is to bring light to the otherwise lesser known piccolo and really bend the limits of what it can do as a musical instrument and how well it can fit into its own mold through almost every genre of music. I dedicate every note, every breath of air I methodically put into the instrument, and essentially my entire life to shining light on what this little thing can do!
Tara, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a professional performing musician and pedagogue. I identified as a flutist by trade for quite a few years but it never felt right for me. I think it’s because my heart has belonged to the piccolo since the moment I started learning it, an instrument which many flutists avoid like a plague despite being required to learn it! I live it, I breathe it, and playing it professionally gives me purpose in life. I began playing flute at the age of 10 and by 12 I was primarily playing the instrument that was deemed the most obnoxious musical instrument, the piccolo. My stepmom borrowed a piccolo from the school where she was teaching and immediately I was hooked. What I thought would be an otherwise shrill and loud instrument was actually this tiny piece of plastic and metal that could emote, have a richness, a variety of tone colors, and the complexity of flute or any instrument for that matter. My main goal for my path in music is to break the stigma of the piccolo as a less desirable instrument for listening and enjoyment , and show audiences, other musicians, and my students that it is just as diverse as the flute. I utilize it in classical, modern, and even in pop music. Since a lot of flutists shy away from piccolo, I encourage my students and colleagues to explore it as a solo instrument that can span over many forms of music outside of just the orchestral realm. I hold this position as a responsibility seriously and believe in it wholeheartedly that piccolo is underrated greatly. I feel like it’s my job to support the great piccoloists across the world and help perpetuate a more positive and inviting look into learning and listening to the piccolo.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
For any musician or performing artist who reads this, most of them probably understand that this career is about constant pivoting. It’s really about learning how to juggle different tasks, how to get along with different personalities, learning how to pivot from being upset about another rejection from an audition to turning it into a learning experience. For me right now I think my biggest pivot is learning how to come out of the professional music world I was in, transitioning back to a student while being a teacher myself to my private students part time, and now fully coming back into the professional world. Each “pivot” I think I’ve faced has typically been for the better. I genuinely feel like I am ready to come back full force into the professional world with a more defined purpose for my art now.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
The piccolo is so unexplored as an instrument in general. It can span over so many different genres other than being an auxiliary instrument in an orchestra. Because it’s so unexplored, I get a lot of opportunities to work with living composers and other creatives with different backgrounds and life views to curate sounds, new types of music…. All of that I get to do! And honestly, saying that back to myself reminds me how lucky I am to be in this field of the arts. I love collaborating and creating with people down to a true connective level like music and sound. I love that by experimenting with other musicians and artists, I get to further develop the piccolo as a more varied and substantial instrument in music across the board. That in itself, being able to express the voices of young living composers helps fuel my mission of making a piccolo a more prominent instrument name in the musical world.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tararozanski.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tararozanskipiccolo/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@rozanskit
Image Credits
Tony Salicandro Camille Davidson Kobi Davidson