I knew this simple piece well having played it by memory since childhood. The Melody in F has a few notes that are the theme and flowing variations are similar. Movements all beautiful and hard to deny, I repeated to myself as I traveled across the stage accompanied by obligatory, gloved, applause resonating in a hall standing for over one hundred years. My stand partner, with a wink, met me center stage and handed me my cello and bow and I turned to acknowledge the crowd.

My suit stuck to me, my body to stiff to sit – I tucked the chair under me – the one placed center stage, just for me, Shannon Reed, the winner of the instrumental soloist, amongst many entrants, for the Annual Celebration of Carnegie Soloist for 2009. The applause ended, I placed my bow on the string, glanced up at Todd Kidd, satisfied guest conductor – and began the night’s entertainment.

It was hard to not play the glorious tune splendidly. It’s the most beautiful melody. It sets hearts aflutter and minds skipping off to run through fields of sunflowers and daisies and the one piece that most reminds me of my mother and her love for the cello. I wanted to play the clarinet; I know she was here listening to her favorite suite.

I continued to play even though I saw blood on the fingerboard. I dropped my thumb down to the base of the cello’s neck and found that the blood was right under the string, in fact, right on the spot where my finger would land to play the next note. I put my index finger on it, pressed the string down, and added vibrato to the note. It emanated the sweetest change in sound. I swore it split the concert hall piercing even the toughest of hearts and conjured up a collective moan. This continued for three of the splatters and I admit one was not scripted. The scales were simple the bowing technique too and I would not fool myself about the consequences, there would be hell to pay. But there was nothing to do except play the piece well – and that I did.

I played to the strained belt of the detective in the cheap seats. And to Sam who sat so engulfed in what he perceived as my genius that he sat as none do – lit-up like a one man light bulb. I knew my mother and father were there and heard through the voice of the cello the sounds of my children I never had, the years now gone of my brothers and me running through the house scaring my mother with a bull frog. My father coming in from work and saying, “Honey I’m home.” All I could imagine in those last measures, and first glimpses of the end in sight, was how beautiful it is to hold a bow in your hand, and place it on the string of a wooden being always capable of a wholly human sound. Sometimes, I see it like a puppet that I control – pulling the strings of the cello – and sometimes I see it as pulling the emotional strings of an unsuspecting audience – through skill.

I looked around at the audience who stood enormous and enamored and applauded the orchestra, Todd Kidd and me and we signaled recognitions to each other. I inhaled deeply to absorb the moment, maybe my last one ever on stage, and refused, for a time, to look at Sam because he knew and I just couldn’t look directly at him fearing I would be the one to cry this time.

After a few seconds, I finally smiled at Sam. He wasn’t looking in amazement at me like I thought he would be. It wasn’t a glare, or a stink eye, either. Rather it was a familiar musicianship between professionals response. He was laughing hysterically. One hand on his knee, the other grabbing his tuxedo vest, I looked straight down at him and envied his outright laughter. But I knew I would eventually join him in one hell of a belly laugh.

Sam knew that I had seen the barn, like an old hungry horse, and ran for the last note of the night, forsaking all taste, decorum and, of course, Todd Kidd. I felt Melody’s justice as it made sense that I would, also distastefully, adhere to the lessons of an old rogue and end the piece – with a blue cut.