Musical adventure of a 16 year old Hanne traveling through France with her Clarinet and 20€.

Searching for the right pictures to illustrate my new book "Growing through Music".

This is me, 16 years old, practicing clarinet in Arles (France) in a small street where suddenly a kid is sitting next to me listening.

You see the music paper next to me?

I wrote some clarinet studies and new solo pieces on my way traveling through France on my own with my clarinet & 20€ (800 Bfr at that time). Most of my time I was composing during the day and performing in restaurants in the evening where they always asked me to come back the next day to play. The people listened! Even if it was their dinner time, they gave applause.

I hitchhiked for a month (Montpellier, Arles, Marseille, Béziers, Narbonne, Perpignan, Nimes, Carcassonne...) and earned 20.000 Bfr exclusive the costs for sleeping and eating that I made because I had no money with me, no bank card even and it was 1996,so no mobile phone yet!

Everybody was friendly, they loved the Mozart clarinet concerto and my own pieces that I was performing.

I slept in youth hostels but also, lots of times creative people, invited my at their places. I ended even up at meetings with photographers and the director of the pompidou museum.

Unique connections, pure creativity and love for art that was connecting!

I remember my father was laughing when I left the house. He thought I would be back in a couple of days because how would I live, eat, sleep and move..? Every week I called one time to home from a public phone to say I was still alive

The '90, so safe, peaceful and creative.

Beautiful time connecting with myself and society through music. Such positive memories!

#impactcomposer #growingthroughmusic