Associate Professor of Music; Chair, Department
of Music, Bucknell University
favorite music
I enjoy a wide range of music—from bluegrass to classic rock;
from Sousa marches to orchestral works. Current CDs rotating in
my car include Foreigner’s Greatest Hits, Bartok’s Concerto
for Orchestra, Patti Lovelace’s Mountain Soul, and the Paragon
Ragtime Orchestra’s More Candy.
Like many, I have had a rather circuitous route to my career as
a performer and music teacher. As a fifth grader, when I first played
in a school band, I had the option of choosing an elective course
from either band or art. I chose art class, but upon discovering
that I was the only boy in an art room full of girls, I quickly
switched to band. I decided to play the trumpet, thinking that with
only three buttons to push, I’d have to learn only three notes.
I was wrong. As an undergraduate, I continued to play the trumpet—not
all that successfully (perhaps I was still getting over the shock
of having to learn all of those additional notes).
It wasn’t until a year or so into my first job as a music teacher—teaching
high school band—that I began to study the horn. I had a wonderful
teacher. I well remember my first lessons with him: my first assignments
were to work only on the note “G”—perhaps the most
stable note on a horn. Doing so, he told me, would help to keep
me from sounding like “a trumpet player that switched to the
horn.” He was also the teacher that later suggested that I
go to a major graduate school to continue my education. I did, and
that’s where I met my wife—playing in the band.
Teachers can have such an enormous effect on the lives of their
students; I hope that, in return for what teachers have given me,
I can impart a part of their legacy to students of my own. As my
first horn teacher wrote me a few years ago, teachers pass on “musical
traditions and skills, personal and professional preparedness, a
sense of humanity, a love of and respect for culture and civilization,
and so much more.” And, I add, that’s what ensembles such
as the Williamsport Symphony Orchestra do as well.
