Music was the thing I always enjoyed, I played piano, and so to avoid art I took orchestra and ended up playing percussion. Not everybody likes timpani. I was good at it and was kind of pushed into it. The pitch part of it, getting the instruments in tune and then changing the tuning during a piece, daunts many percussionists, he says. Both Haas and Raney have had to build soundproof studios in order to practice, and both have large collections of instruments.
Transportation is another problem.
Raney stores many of his drums with a company that also delivers the required instruments to each gig. In Pasadena, Haas has in effect a third partner in music director Jorge Mester. After hearing Haas in an early New York recital, Mester invited him to join the Aspen Music Festival faculty, and Haas says that gave him the kind of serious credential he needed to underpin his burgeoning career. He has been very helpful, and we're going to do it together again in Mexico at the end of June. The piece seems to have legs.