The Next Morning, I Got a Call.

As a bit of a background for the following story, I would first like to include a brief amount of information on myself:  My experience as a musician includes a considerable amount of national travel for various events such as competitions, summer camps, lessons with faculty at other schools (mostly on the east coast), auditions, and playing chamber music concerts with other musicians nation-wide.

For several years, I have found a very strong personal connection with a violinist I met while playing chamber music at a camp in New York.  His name was Dmitri and he had moved to the U.S. from Russia at age 12, graduated from high school at age 16, and gone straight to Juilliard to study violin performance with the faculty there.  I instantly fell in love with his playing, and we grew very close during the 5-week music camp in Oneonta.  Since the emotional finish of the camp 2 years ago, we have kept in very regular contact, occasionally meeting up to play duets or just get coffee and enjoy each others company.

An extremely sad norm at Juilliard (that I only recently discovered) is the widespread use of cocaine.  Musicians at Juilliard (especially for more competitive majors such as violin and piano) are pushed so hard by themselves and their teachers to practice upwards of 18 hours a day (and often for several days without sleeping) that they find resource in drugs like cocaine and insane amounts of caffeine to keep themselves awake and focused for so many hours on end.

My friend Dmitri promised me he would not use extreme drugs, until a terrible night came for him...



The next morning, I got a call from a hospital in New York City, asking if I was Adrienne Cannon, regarding a boy who had overdosed of cocaine in his dorm room at Juilliard the night before.  I was his emergency contact on his phone because his parents were in Russia and I was his closest friend.

They told me he was lucky to be alive, but that he was going to have some temporary paralysis.  After a few days of intensive care, it turned out that his paralysis was permanent in his fingers and toes.
He would never be capable of playing the violin ever again.

The morning I got that phone call, my identity as a friend changed forever.  I realized that life was too short and full of unexpected things to take friends for granted or underestimate how much they need you.  In the months that followed, I worked with my friend to help him through an extremely tough time that I will never truly be able to understand and now he is pursuing a goal of being a conductor.