Now a French horn player for the the Israel Sinfonietta in Be'er Sheva, Klein remembers two other specifics from those early days--a list of orchestras in Israel and a burning love for the country, a feeling that she absolutely belonged in the Jewish state.

"I just started making cold calls, and said 'I'm Sarah and I'm a horn player from Boston,' and I got auditions.'" By the time that thousand dollars ran out, Klein had snagged a spot as horn player for the Sinfonietta, the post she still holds. In the beginning, Klein commuted to Be'er Sheva from Jerusalem. Now married with two very young children, she currently makes her home in Be'ersheva.

For classical musicians who are observant, Israel is ideal, Klein says. "In the chozeh-- or contract--it says that observant musicians don't have to play on Shabbat," she explains.

When concerts begin very soon after Shabbat ends, the orchestra provides car service for Shabbat-observant orchestra members, of whom there are now five. And if the concert is in a different city, observant musicians are placed in hotel rooms in that city, again paid for by the orchestra.

Klein is passionate about her instrument, and grateful for the chance to play. "In the United States, an observant musician would probably teach," she says, knowing that probably would have been her fate had she stayed put.

Talking to Klein, you can hear twenty-two years of love for the French horn. When Klein was nine, a high-school band came and did a demo for the elementary school children. Klein thought the horn was fabulous.

"I thought it sounded really pretty and I loved the way it looked. It was shiny and twisty and the most interesting-looking of all of them," she recalls.

"The band director didn't want to give it to me. I was too small, so he gave me an alto horn. After a year, he finally gave me a French horn," she says. "I was ten, and I stuck with it."

"That was it. I was the only French horn player in the school district. I really liked it, and I was doing well, which is an impetus to keep going."

Soon Klein had a private teacher, followed by sessions at Juilliard and a bachelor's degree program at Boston University, where she met a teacher who became her inspiration. But the road wasn't easy.

Klein once actually left the horn. After college graduation and a six-month stint at a music college in New York, she felt burnt out. She decided to quit, travel around Europe, and eventually go back to Boston. She bartended and waited tables for three years in Boston, making good money and trying to figure out where to go with her life.

"I didn't want to play horn, but I didn't know what else I wanted to do," she says. "In those years of waiting on tables, I was beginning to become interested in religion, and I realized that God gives you what God gives you, what one has (being a musician) is a gift from God."

"The day I decided to play horn again I was really excited," Klein remembers. "The case was dusty, and I sat in my kitchen. I started to play Mozart's horn concerto, and it felt great."

"Of course my lips hurt the next day. But I decided to play horn. I can't explain why, I just did. This was what God gave me. My decision to go back to music freed me."

Klein called her former teacher at Boston University, who said "I knew you'd come back. You're the kind of person who would stay in music." The next day, he came over with a stack of exercises, on top of which he wrote: Savlanut (patience). It was the first Hebrew word Klein learned.

Within months, Klein had a summer gig playing at Disneyworld and a grad-school acceptance. A job teaching in the youth symphony during grad school led to her joining the youth symphony's tour of Israel. She changed her ticket and stayed.

Klein is sticking with both the country and her music, and she wants to encourage young Jewish musicians to consider Israel. Ideologically, she believes Jews should be in Israel, and musically, she says, there are a lot of opportunities there.

"Many of the musicians in my orchestra are very talented," she says, and she is challenged by her work.

In some ways, Israel is not like the United States. The programming is often more familiar fare. Since the Sinfonietta is a chamber orchestra, Beethoven and Mozart are commonly played. Klein says she misses composers like Mahler, Strauss, and Brahms, who were regularly featured in the larger symphony orchestras she played with in Boston.

As for the current political situation, it hasn't affected the Be'er Sheva Symphonietta very much. A concert in Jerusalem was cancelled for security reasons which weren't elaborated on, but that was it. Life goes on, both in and out of music. Once in a rare while, there are warnings.

"There was one concert in Ashkelon, which is close to Gaza, where before the concert they directed us to which emergency exit to use should there be a bomb." Fortunately, all was well.

"My first year in Israel I lost a girlfriend to those bus bombs," she says, referring to the string of Bus 18 terrorist attacks. Now a seasoned Israeli, Klein focuses on her family and her music. She puts in at least an hour or an hour and a half a day of practice, in addition to rehearsals.

Not that Sarah Klein is complaining. She is living her dream, playing the instrument that fascinated her at nine in the country that captivated her with its religious freedoms--both on and off the stage.

Sarah Klein can be reached at hamoreh@netvision.net.il, and can be heard performing throughout Israel.