Meet Patrick Moore | Cellist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Patrick Moore and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Patrick, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
I always heard that if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life. I now realize that if you do what you love, you’d better be careful or you will work every day of your life. I find myself lucky to be in the position of having achieved many of my wildest dreams in my career. I have dedicated my life to this career of my choosing and I love it! However, that passion easily turns into obsession and before I know it, I have spent an entire day, or week, or month to working every waking moment. Regardless of how passionate I am about my career, I know very well that it is not what is most important in my life. In the first few years of the relationship with my husband, we both endured many major losses in our families. It was a hard time and it made the importance of family and friends significant in both of our lives. From this knowledge, we have a shared habit of prioritizing time with our family and friends on our schedules first before other obligations can take over the rest of the schedule. One strategy that we have used with good success is to set aside a certain regular time for family and friends where we will not schedule anything work related. This can be morning tea, or time after 8:00 PM to enjoy dinner and movie together. We also try to keep our Saturday morning off to enjoy each others company. I have also reached a point in my life where I condense my career related obligations to Tuesday-Saturday and I also time of Sunday and Monday to get caught up with everything that it is outside of my career. At the end of my life I’m not going to be thinking about my performances nor my accomplishments, I’m going to holding my loved ones hands and cherishing every moment I have with them.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My main goal in life has always been rather simple: make beautiful music. How I have spent my time achieving that goal has evolved over time though. I started out by trying to get into a major orchestra. I had my share of success, but I wanted more. I wanted more than just a week’s worth of rehearsals to throw a program of music together. Therefore, I opted to form a string quartet, The Axiom Quartet, with my dear friend Dominika Dancewicz where we could rehearse programs of music properly and present concerts at the highest artistic level possible. I am very happy with that organization and we have been successfully presenting fantastic concerts for nearly 8 years now. The habit of challenging myself hasn’t stopped with my wonderful string quartet. At one point an audition for another organization was offered to me and at the same time the opportunity to start a youth orchestra became known to me as well. Either venture was going to take several hundred hours of my time to succeed and I knew I could only reasonable choose one path from the time constraints in my schedule. Winning the audition would be a major accomplishment in my personal career and the youth orchestra would help my community and maybe even future generations of musicians. I knew both had a strong chance of failure. If I don’t win the audition, then at least I am a better cellist. If the youth orchestra doesn’t interest enough students, then at least I will get to know the other music teachers in my community better. In the end, I decided that it was more important for me to spend my time to help my community rather than just myself. I know I made the right choice. The Opus 99 Youth Orchestra now has a great board, fantastic faculty, and the infrastructure set so that we will be starting strong in the Fall of 2021. No matter what at the end of the day I know will always be making beautiful music. However instead of asking “what do I want to do” first, I now know the better question is “what does my community need” then ask “what would I like to do to help”.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Houston is a HUGE city with so much to offer. There are endless options for shows, food, and art. I like to show people what was shown to me when I visited for the first time. We start with breakfast tacos from El Rey. Then we walk off the calories with a hike in Hermann Park. It’s a big park, but with a normal walking pace we can see McGovern Centennial Gardens , The Japanese Garden, and stroll up the hill of Miller Outdoor Theater in a few hours. There are a ton of restaurants to choose from in the Montrose area for lunch, but I would give a choice of The Pit Room for good Texas BBQ, Pondicheri for some amazing Indian street food, and Mala Sichuan for some spice. The afternoon would have to be devoted to the Menil collection as it is one of my favorite museums in the world. For dinner we would enjoy table filled with steak from Killens STQ followed by their carrot cake for dessert which will have them booking their trip back to Houston after one bite.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Karl Blench- My beloved husband, editor in chief, master chef, wine doctor at the end of a hard day, and the person I go to first when I need help with any music or career related issue.

Website: www.moorecello.com

Instagram: @axiomquartet

Twitter: @axiomquartet

Facebook: www.facebook.com/axiomquartet

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWMMEhT-Z0xj7pnVx3EYzAQ

Other: www.opus99.org www.axiomquaret.com