Back home from the Sun Valley Festival. I purposely did not blog from the trip because, initially, of the uncertainty of my relationship with the band. As the trip progressed, however, the uncertainty faded into an embracing of the current reality: that my time (as a regular - at least) with the Midiri Brothers touring sextet was finished. Tensions have been building throughout the year, but handled professionally, on both sides, to my view. On the trip home, we both (discovered that we) planned to broach the subject to each other. In my case, the determination was solidified during the festival, in their’s, it was a predetermined move. No bridges were burned, at least in our personal rapport, which (the brothers knew) was my first priority. There are a lot of implications to this, of course, and without expounding now, I’ll just say that God is at work, and it’s all good. With the exception of local sideman work, my focus now will be solo piano concert performances. I’ll soon be tweaking my web schedule to reflect this. One disappointment here will be the disruption of my rapport with those outside of my local area, with whom the festival traveling allowed me to visit. God will work that out too - we’ll just have to wait to see how. The Midiri band is in a very good place now, in several respects, and I wish the guys a great ride! The next post will be selected pictures from the festival (that I hoarded instead of immediately posting), posted without comment.