But this was one request that made me pause - and say, "no thanks". But let me back up. From 1986 to 1991 I hosted the Friday evening broadcasts from Orchestra Hall. I loved it for two reasons, the first one pretty selfish. In the beginning I knew so little repertoire, and each week was on-the-job education, the Orchestra presenting the biggest, splashiest classroom imaginable. At the time Music Director Edo de Waart was working his way through the Mahler symphonies, and each one of these pieces was like a thunder clap up close - power and magnificence. Second: this is virtually the last American orchestra to regularly broadcast their performances live; it takes players with talent and spine to do that, and it was exciting to bring their art to you.

But then, the Grass-Is-Greener Syndrome. I'd always dreamt of living in a German-speaking country to polish my Deutsch and see how if I could survive in a foreign culture. German State Radio (Deutsche Welle) asked me to host a daily international news program, European Journal, and I jumped at it. The Balkan War was on, the Berlin Wall had fallen a year or so earlier … it was an exciting time to be in Europe.

For two years I happily nudged my career in that new direction, journalism. But - I'll save you the convoluted turns - all did not go as planned. Family illness, and a less-than-enthusiastic response to all things German, brought me home to the States. I came back to Minnesota and eventually hung out a freelancer's shingle. I worked weekends at American Public Media, wrote books, sang with the Dale Warland Singers, and, between bending nails in a 1929 St. Paul fixer-upper, bounced two babies on my knee. OK, so I wouldn't be a journalist. The freelancer's hat fit, and I loved the juggling of jobs and family life. Do you get the picture? A life moving not in the straightest line - but the line and the life always moving forward.

So, when the question came, "Do you want a crack at your old job?" I said at first, "No thanks" - as much as I'd loved hosting the Minnesota Orchestra, that was Something I Used To Do. But the requester was persistent and I eventually said, Oh, what the heck, just this once.

Their program that week: a Haydn symphony, Strauss's Four Last Songs, and a semi-staged Ravel opera I'd never heard before, L'Enfant et les Sortileges, about a little boy who learns compassion from the animals in his backyard.

I went to a midweek rehearsal. One foot inside Orchestra Hall and the blood started rushing. Strauss's glorious swan song, the pure magic of Ravel (who elbows Bach and Schubert for top spot on my favorite-composers list) - I should've seen this coming. When it was all over Friday night at 10:00 I felt I'd been absolutely blind-sided. The beauty of the music, the excitement of it taking place right then, the challenge of trying to convey all of that to you - I was hooked. Monday morning I wrote a proposal to host the broadcasts full time again, and did my best to hide my Please-Oh-Please feeling.

So I'm back home. Funny thing, it doesn't feel like a return, but the next exciting step that a lucky guy gets to take with his life. I hope you'll join me Friday nights on American Public Media. And if you're in some other part of the world and can't tune in American Public Media, try your local public radio station. Many carry the broadcasts on a delayed basis. Either way, you'll hear extraordinary music and wonderful music-making.