“Being a musician is like anything in life – you have to be able to listen and respect others. Sometimes you have to play softly because that’s the best way to be heard. But I don’t think that music makes me or anyone better or kinder – if you want to immediately make the world a better place, help a neighbor! But music does make the world bigger, and connects us.
Luck has a big impact on my career. There are so few trombonist jobs in the world, that you have to be in the right place at the right time. Hard work brings more luck, but perfection doesn’t exist. I practice to achieve perfection, but during a concert or opera, things happen that you just have to accept. After four hours in the practice room – never longer than that – I feel free, light, free. I can’t live without music. But music is not my whole life.
I grew up on Favignana, a small island off Sicily, which is built on the tuna industry. My grandfather used to spear tuna. But all that is gone. My father worked as a carpenter. Traditionally, many people on the island play in brass bands, at village festivals, Catholic festivals, in processions. That's how I started. I went with my father to his rehearsals. It was only when I attended a music conservatory in Sicily as a teenager that I felt I could choose music as a profession, even though I had always felt it inside me.
Friends who aren’t musicians say ‘you have a job where you get applause every day’. But it's also tough, you are exposed and vulnerable because you are judged. I can feel stress before the solos but tell myself that I have chosen this of my own free will, and I can't go home. I'm on the dance floor - it's just dancing!”
Italian-born Michele Campo has been a co-principal trombone in the Göteborg Opera Orchestra since 2022. He has also played with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. He studied at the Haute école de musique de Genève, among other places.
