Learning German part of Wilson’s experience

Warren County native Jeremy Wilson has been living a life most classical musicians only dream about, after being chosen to play for one of the world’s premier classical music orchestras, the Vienna Philharmonic.

The biggest change for Jeremy and his wife, Kristi, was the couple’s physical move to Vienna, Austria, a long way, both in distance and cultural traditions, from Warren County. They have lived there about eight months.

In the second installment of an interview with the Standard, Wilson talks about what it’s like to live in one of Europe’s most venerated cities and how he and Kristi have dealt with the culture shock.

‘It’s a bit colder here than I thought it would be, and they’re telling me this is a mild winter’ said Wilson of Vienna in general. ‘But as far as the city, it’s a beautiful city, especially the old city. The history here is amazing. It’s easy to get around and there’s a lot of great food and fun things to do. We really like the food.’

The language barrier hasn’t been a major problem, mainly due to one of the city’s features.

‘There’s a fairly active English-speaking community here,’ Wilson said. ‘You can find English menus and English restaurants. There’s activities for English-speaking people, English literature. That’s been fairly nice, especially for Kristi, who hasn’t had to learn German as quickly as I have.’

As for himself, Jeremy says he realizes he is going to have to make a concerted effort to learn the language.

‘It’s going OK,’ he said, and then laughed. ‘Since Christmas I’ve tried to work toward being a little bit more committed. It makes it a little bit harder because my closest colleagues all have great English. So if I’m kind of stumbling along in German and having trouble, they’ll say ‘Let’s just speak English. It’ll be easier.’ But it’s not forcing me to learn German. So at some point I’m going to have to say nope, let’s speak German.’

Despite the fact he is the only American in an orchestra composed mostly of native Austrians, Wilson says he hasn’t had much trouble fitting in.

‘In general it’s been fairly easy,’ Jeremy said. ‘There have been mostly positive comments. There have been a few kind of, ‘Hmm, I wonder,’ reactions, but for the most part it has been really overwhelmingly positive. Everybody’s been very nice to me. I think they were willing to give me a shot.’

And what’s it like actually performing with the Vienna Philharmonic?

‘It’s amazing,’ Wilson said. ‘It’s sort of hard to answer because it goes by so fast. A lot of it seems very surreal. Only a couple of times have I been able to just really soak it in. I got a bit emotional the first philharmonic concert that I played. Which was kind of cool because my parents were here at the time, and they and Kristi got to come to my very first concert here in early November.

‘I got kind of emotional because it was the end of this intense year,’ Wilson said, ‘that started when, OK, I found out about all this and I prepared and prepared and worried about ‘Am I going to move, am I not? Am I going to make it’?

‘And then to be there playing with that group in that hall, we were playing Mahler’s first symphony, and I’m playing Mahler’s music with what is basically Mahler’s orchestra. I’m just sitting there going, ‘This is unbelievable.’

Well, believe it Jeremy. It’s true.

Those who would like to follow Jeremy and Kristi’s amazing journey as it continues can do so on their Internet blog at theviennawilsons.net.