WEBVTT

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 like to identify on the tape. Um, but this is an interview for the living

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history video project for Arizona
State University retirees association.

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And I'm liam Stephenson doing the
interview. And our videographer today is

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Manny Garcia and today is monday
january 30th of 2000 and six. And we're

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at the visitor information center of a
issue at rural road and Apache

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boulevard. And I like to let you
introduce yourself. Why don't you give us

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your full name? Well, my name is
Eugene Lombardi And I live here in Tempe

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Arizona. I haven't since 1965. Okay,
I'd like to start with some

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background. Why don't you tell me when
you were born and where you were

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born? Well, I was born on July 7,
1923. In town, I should say, a suburb of

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Pittsburgh called north braddock
pennsylvania. And uh My parents have been

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here in the United States about 2, 3
years. And uh we lived in a little, a

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small apartment evidently and my
father was a tailor and commuted to work

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in, in north braddock also, I had to
stop and think in a long time. Why

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did your parents come to the United
States? Where did they come from? Well

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, both my mother and father are from a
town in Italy called the castle

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Cipriano. And actually the main reason
that my father came over, it was

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because he refused to be a fascist.
And in fact was in the First World War

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and

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it was was being sought by by the
fascist party to I don't know what, so

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that my father had to escape and went
through the way of France and spain

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and finally to the United States, I
went to Cleveland where my mother's

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brothers were living. And from there
he made his way to Pittsburgh. So

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they were they married before that, he
came over secretly, married before

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they came over. And when she came
over, they got married again here. And

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um, were you the first child

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I was? Uh, my sister didn't come along
until uh, two years later,

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was it just the two of, you know, and
I have a brother to who's now living

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in Houston texas. What was that area
of Pittsburgh like at that time? Well

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, of course, I didn't stay there much
beyond my high school days when I

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went away to schools, but all I
remember was a very dirty area, much smoke

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soot difficult to breathe. Uh, places
looked rather decrepit and unsightly

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, and that's just the way I remember
it. And then when I went back after

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coming back from the, my, my war
years, I couldn't get over what had

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happened. Everybody had washed up the
town is all clean and everything. So

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talk about about as growing up as a
boy, would you have any favorite

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experiences or things that you would
stand out in your memory? Well,

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my dad was was a very a strict person,
he wanted, he liked being in the

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United States and he didn't want us to
do anything that would make things

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look rather negatively towards us or
towards the country. So it was a very

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strict upbringing.

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I do remember my, my younger years, I
mean before six where we had to be

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very proper and we didn't have much
money. We had to be very easy on the

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expenditures. So it was a rather, as I
look back now, a rather difficult

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upbringing, but yet it was not an
unhappy one. It was one where I felt

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happy to be alive and my folks
provided very well for us there for me at

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the time, of course,

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I look upon it as a happy childhood,
rather strict, But it was a happy one.

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And you pretty much were living in, in
the city, not you weren't out in

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the country or that's right. We were
in uh, as I remember, it was at the

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foot of the George, Westinghouse
Bridge where there was a little little

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home that and we occupied a few rooms.
Had rented a few rooms there, as I

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was told later because I don't
remember that. And uh, it was only until, I

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guess we were there only until

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probably The year after I was born
until 1924,

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when my father had enough money to put
down on a little house to be built

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in swiss veil pennsylvania and that's
right. Really spent most of my time.

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That's a nice name, Swiss filled it.
Like it was very nice. It was a very

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high level town by high level, I mean
people were, we're not run of the

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mill, uh coal miner type or
steelworker type, something like that, They

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were white collar people. And my
father being a tailor, wanted to

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eventually open a tailor shop of his
own in some place and he thought that

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might be a nice area to do that in and
which it did turn out to be very

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nice. Was it like a suburb or was it
was it was a suburb of Pittsburgh, I

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would say a little farther away from
the core of Pittsburgh than say Tempe

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is the paintings, But it was about a
nine mile dr with lots of little

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towns in between,

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was it Swiss dale, was it Swiss people
or was it other italian? Uh no, it

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was a very good mixture, it was a
swiss veil and, and I don't know why it

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was called Swiss Rail, I have no
recollection of it being, you know, one

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type of people or another, they were
mostly white collar, There were some

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people there who worked in this steel
mill offices, so it wasn't that the

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, the people that were in swiss veil
ones who worked in the mills or

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worked in the coal mines or anything
like that, you know,

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a good middle class town

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um do you remember things about
growing up there, was it the kind of place

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where you wrote your bicycle or Yes,
uh there was lots of bike riding done

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then, although we couldn't afford a
bicycle in my early years evidently,

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so I walked to school, The elementary
school was just beyond our backyard

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, up the hill there was of a million
elementary school. And I went there

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of course for my the first six years.
Then I had to go to a junior high

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school which was about a mile away.
And high school was just a few blocks

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away from there and I walked both
ways. In fact came home for lunch and

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went back within the hour. So it's no
fooling around and even walked the

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railroad tracks so that I can get
there faster.

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Were you a good party? You're tapping
your a microphone? I'm sorry, down

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here and it's your butt, That's what
it is. Yeah. Okay.

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Sure.

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Um What was school like in those days?
Was it a small school or? Uh the

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high school? Okay. Well the elementary
school was was a small school that

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had, as I say, the sixth grades and I
doubt if there are more than one or

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two sections of each grade. The junior
high was much larger. Of course I

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felt like it was a bigger school. It
may not have been bigger, but it felt

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bigger. And the high school I imagine
was 7-800 students Of the Upper

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three grades.

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Were you a good student? Well, of
course I

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yes, I'm a I had good grades and I had
no problems with getting along with

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the teacher. I was rather serious. Uh,
I wanted to succeed and uh, as did

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my parents, uh, they wanted me to be
happy to be in the situation is that

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we were in and And uh I did my very
best to get good grades and I did

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because as a result that scholarships
came forth, graduating in the upper

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5% of the class. I think it was, what
were your favorite subjects? Well

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besides music,

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I like the sciences, I like physics
and chemistry. I enjoyed english as

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much as I as I had to, I might add.
And and that my first years at home

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were uh with my parents speaking
italian so that I knew very few words and

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in english when I went to school at
least appears to me now that it was

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very few. I'm sure I had, my dad would
pick up quite a few words in his

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work. He worked for a uh, what should
I say, a men's store that handled

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suits and he was the tailor for them.
And, and I imagine it was difficult

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communications there at the store for
a while for a few years and uh, a

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word here and a word there, my mother
seemed to have less trouble and

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picking up the language and spoke
eventually very very well and wrote

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beautifully and,

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but we in order to get points across
or in our haste, we communicated in

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italian and uh so that I was speaking
both when I went to school. It was

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rather difficult, I hear, I didn't
know it didn't seem difficult to me

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then, but that going to school and
communicating with the teacher with the

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other students so little by little by,
there was more english and less

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italian being spoken at home because
my parents don't understand more and

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, and so would I Mhm. So it was, it
was nice and I never regretted those

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years because I've, I've used those
italian terminology, terminology a lot

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in my profession and music and uh it
came naturally be pronouncing

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correctly and all that because of the,
those early early years that I had

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, it's interesting some of the other
people we've talked to had the same

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experiences speaking languages at
home. I don't think Children today very

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often have that um do you remember the
struggle to learn english in school

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or was it a struggle or No, I don't,
you know, strange as it may seem, you

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know, I remember lots of things about
my very early years, but I don't

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remember problems in in school as far
as understanding the teacher or

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being able to communicate with my
fellow students. So it must have been an

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easy transition for me I guess. And it
wasn't much of a transition because

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after all, I was born there and I was
hearing english all the time, but

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learning italian, it just seemed to
come naturally because that's what my

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folks always spoke.

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You said your father wanted to open
his own tailor shop. Did he eventually

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do that? Yes, he did. He did open we,
the home that we built in swiss veil.

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It was a brick home that had a, a
large porch in the front and eventually

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eventually gradually built the part of
the porch into a sun porch. Uh and

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then that became the tailor shop. And
I go back to look at it now and I

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just can't believe that this tailor
shop that was probably maybe 10 ft by

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15 or 18, uh, not much bigger than my
office was in school. And I figured

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how could he have had a tailor shop in
there, But but he did open the

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tailor shop and evidently had a good
reputation because lots of people

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came by and had clothes made or
repaired,

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refitted, so to speak, you know, taken
in or let out. And for a while of

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course he had to do some work for the
taylor that, I mean the men's store

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that he was working for. And in the
evenings he would work in his tailor

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shop, so to speak. And it gradually
grew to the point where he needed more

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room and so down the cellar, there was
a great big table that was used as

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his tailoring table laying out the
material and cutting out

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the pieces to make his main thrust or
ability was coat maker. He had a

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gold medal in from the sartorial
school in Italy in coat making. And that

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I guess was the hardest part of
tailoring or sartorial

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endeavor. And he made lots of coats, I
mean for women as well as men and

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all the time whistled through
everything. And I think that's probably

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where

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I received some of my love for music
because my dad loved opera and he

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just would just whistle away. And I
think he knew every aria from every

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opera that was well known and just
continued to whistle all the time. You

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know, happy in his work sewing away.
Whistling is kind of a lost art. Did

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you learn to whistle? No, I didn't. I
mean I whistle but not like he did.

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He could, he had a tremendous range
and and he had all the nuances and was

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able to control his pitch and
everything, yet knew nothing about music.

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Mhm. Did you learn to do some of the
tailoring? Did he teach you?

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No, my mother, as I said, it was a
very just was an excellent seamstress

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and she did a lot of the fine work for
my father so that he could get more

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done. He would do all the cutting and
all that. Maybe she would do some of

00:15:12.129 --> 00:15:16.217
them putting together the delegates
stitching the cuffing and things like

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that. No, I ended up being the
delivery boy uh from a very early age when

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I was finally lucky enough to get a
bicycle that was the delivery boy and

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I'd go down the street and they all
used to tell me that you used to be

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down there with one hand up here
holding a hanger with clothes on it and

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driving the bike, you know, rain or
shine and not almost with snow too. So

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it was, I remember that I do remember
having to work because it was

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necessary. My father would well tell
me that it's important that you

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participate because we have very
little money, especially then those days

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it would give me a nickel to go across
the street to get some bologna. So

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we'd have something to eat for lunch
and a nickel, but quite a bit of it.

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So was that your first job? Yes, yes,
definitely. Uh, in fact, I didn't

00:16:12.570 --> 00:16:20.226
have any jobs beyond the tailor shop.
There was a plenty to do and whether

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it was sweeping up, whether it was
eventually working the pressing machine

00:16:25.710 --> 00:16:29.396
had large pressing machines where

00:16:29.429 --> 00:16:37.429
they were all steam machines and I
would do depressing. Yes. So you

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mentioned your music? When did you,
other than your father's whistling?

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When did you get involved with music?
Well, it's a, it's a strange and

00:16:46.330 --> 00:16:52.486
unusual beginning. Um, there was no
reason for me to be in music or to go

00:16:52.519 --> 00:16:59.307
into music. As I mentioned, my father
was a tailor that makes made new

00:16:59.340 --> 00:17:04.687
clothes and he had one customer who
came in and Chilation material and

00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:10.786
ordered two suits to be made. And

00:17:10.819 --> 00:17:15.127
over a period of time the suits were
done completed, ready to be picked up

00:17:15.160 --> 00:17:20.986
and and the man was seen to be
reluctant to come after them. And and

00:17:21.019 --> 00:17:25.467
finally my father put some pressure on
him to, you know, I need to get

00:17:25.500 --> 00:17:29.147
these suits out of here. I mean
they're made for you. And he came and said

00:17:29.180 --> 00:17:33.506
, I, the reason I've been hesitating
is that I can't pay for them. I mean

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I've lost my job or have been out of
work for quite a while and he said, I

00:17:37.569 --> 00:17:43.306
feel bad because that material was
chosen and it was cut up to fit me. And

00:17:43.339 --> 00:17:51.339
he said, I just don't have any money
to pay you. And sadly he said, the

00:17:51.690 --> 00:17:57.256
only thing that I can do is uh is
maybe offer you something that will help

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pay for that material. And my father
says it was very easy going man and

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he was one of us pitfalls, I guess it
was too easy sometimes he would do

00:18:08.599 --> 00:18:13.887
things for nothing because people
couldn't afford it. And this man said, I

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have an old violin,

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he said, I don't know how good it is,
he said, but I'll give it to you and

00:18:20.779 --> 00:18:27.016
and surely it'll be worth enough.
Excuse me, surely be worth enough to to

00:18:27.049 --> 00:18:32.986
pay for the material. And my father is
in the world, okay, took the violin

00:18:33.019 --> 00:18:39.677
and it went up in the attic and 11 day
just before I was starting school

00:18:39.710 --> 00:18:41.806
actually

00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:47.546
he said you know it would be nice if
you learned to play the violin, What

00:18:47.579 --> 00:18:52.157
was the violin? I didn't know what a
violin was and he said we have this

00:18:52.190 --> 00:18:55.046
violin up in the attic and it would be
nice if you learned that you could

00:18:55.079 --> 00:19:00.036
learn all those italian operas that I
sing and and uh he really had lots

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of ideas for me And you know what
could I do but go along. I was a nice

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obeying obedient Italian child, what
should I do? six And I remember going

00:19:14.869 --> 00:19:22.306
on the streetcar to a place in
Pittsburgh where we signed up with a a

00:19:22.339 --> 00:19:29.107
violin school, it's called the new
England School of violin playing and

00:19:29.140 --> 00:19:33.197
I had my own violin came in with it
and and of course they didn't think it

00:19:33.230 --> 00:19:37.397
was any good and that I actually use
one of theirs and that's how I

00:19:37.430 --> 00:19:39.677
started.

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And of course my dad was just so
pleased and every time he'd go to to

00:19:44.779 --> 00:19:48.546
north braddock to the tailor shop that
he was mean to the men's store that

00:19:48.579 --> 00:19:51.726
he was working, he'd stop at the five
and 10 cent store where they sold

00:19:51.759 --> 00:19:57.546
sheet music and he'd come home with
this italian opera aria that he had

00:19:57.579 --> 00:20:02.207
picked up and he didn't put my stand
here play it

00:20:02.240 --> 00:20:09.336
and little by little, I did learn to
play I in, I enjoyed it and I was

00:20:09.369 --> 00:20:16.407
happy doing it and uh and became
evidently became good at it at the time.

00:20:16.440 --> 00:20:22.226
When do you remember first playing in
the public or well in the school,

00:20:22.259 --> 00:20:30.207
if if we can call that public as far
as playing solos?

00:20:30.240 --> 00:20:36.127
Well, I guess maybe when I was nine or
10, my earliest recollection of, of

00:20:36.160 --> 00:20:40.006
playing for people and being

00:20:40.039 --> 00:20:44.637
applauded for what I was doing. So I
would say that that's my earliest

00:20:44.670 --> 00:20:50.816
recollection earlier recollections
were not always happy ones like every

00:20:50.849 --> 00:20:57.197
child I wanted to play too and I'd
have to practice and my father was a

00:20:57.230 --> 00:21:01.726
stickler about me practicing. In fact
to the point that I wasn't

00:21:01.759 --> 00:21:07.887
practicing very much and just beyond
the tailor shop was our, our living

00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:12.947
room and uh, but it was closed off and
people would come in and say, oh my

00:21:12.980 --> 00:21:15.897
, where's that music coming from? He
says, that's my son, he won't

00:21:15.930 --> 00:21:18.986
practice very much. So I have to have
them practice where I can hear him.

00:21:19.019 --> 00:21:21.417
So

00:21:21.450 --> 00:21:27.776
there were some pressure days. In
fact, I even had one happy now, but not

00:21:27.809 --> 00:21:31.217
too happy at the time recollection
where I was supposed to practice in

00:21:31.250 --> 00:21:35.207
half an hour. And uh,

00:21:35.240 --> 00:21:38.667
and I guess I stepped on on something
that would be high enough where I

00:21:38.700 --> 00:21:42.796
could reach the clock and turn to the
head, I practiced my half hour

00:21:42.829 --> 00:21:47.177
except I slipped off and fell and he
came in here, what are you doing? And

00:21:47.210 --> 00:21:51.897
I said, um I was fixing the clock,

00:21:51.930 --> 00:21:53.907
but

00:21:53.940 --> 00:22:01.940
happy now and I think about it, but
very resourceful of Oh yes, right. The

00:22:02.130 --> 00:22:06.397
violins are pretty difficult,
interesting instruments to start on. That's

00:22:06.430 --> 00:22:11.266
what I was told afterwards. And
evidently, as I say, the Good Lord is with

00:22:11.299 --> 00:22:15.226
me, probably everything worked out. I
was able to assimilate the

00:22:15.259 --> 00:22:21.266
information and produce it on the
violin and and do it with not too much

00:22:21.299 --> 00:22:28.607
effort. So I don't know how that could
happen. But it did happen that way

00:22:28.640 --> 00:22:32.697
by all intents and purposes and
understanding of other people's

00:22:32.730 --> 00:22:36.717
experiences. It's the worst thing you
could do is just say that thrust it

00:22:36.750 --> 00:22:39.667
in your hand and say here you're going
to learn to play this and the

00:22:39.700 --> 00:22:45.127
chances for success will be very low.
But this just happened. Yeah, no

00:22:45.160 --> 00:22:50.107
other musical experience at all. None
whatsoever. Not even I just heard

00:22:50.140 --> 00:22:54.806
music. I didn't even know what it was.
It just sounds,

00:22:54.839 --> 00:23:00.506
Did you ever play that violin that he
got? Oh yes, I did. Yes. That violin

00:23:00.539 --> 00:23:05.266
, the violin was not as I say, or as
they said, it was not a real good

00:23:05.299 --> 00:23:09.387
violin, but it turned out to be better
than the one that the new England

00:23:09.420 --> 00:23:16.546
School of violin playing. There was a
funny thing about that was You

00:23:16.579 --> 00:23:22.627
signed a contract for a year to take
52 lessons one A week at a dollar a

00:23:22.660 --> 00:23:28.927
lesson. And And then if you completed
all 52 lessons, you've got to keep

00:23:28.960 --> 00:23:33.476
the violence. Well, you think Gee,
that's wonderful. Except what kind of a

00:23:33.509 --> 00:23:37.996
violent could it be other than the
cigar box without the cigar where you

00:23:38.029 --> 00:23:42.907
got 52 lessons. But here's this
instrument and you got it free, so to

00:23:42.940 --> 00:23:50.127
speak. So eventually I did play on
that violin until uh, oh, I'd say until

00:23:50.160 --> 00:23:54.226
my junior high when I felt the violin
wasn't very good as far as school

00:23:54.259 --> 00:23:59.387
playing because I was sitting first
chair and in the school orchestra. And

00:23:59.420 --> 00:24:04.286
uh, there would always be some solos
within the music. And so that's where

00:24:04.319 --> 00:24:09.397
we got a better instrument than Not.
Very much better. Maybe $100, You

00:24:09.430 --> 00:24:14.897
know, in $100 violin is, is much like
something made out of paper. It's

00:24:14.930 --> 00:24:18.857
just not very valuable or very good.

00:24:18.890 --> 00:24:21.887
Well, tell me about it. They played in
the school orchestra. What kind of

00:24:21.920 --> 00:24:25.607
an orchestra did school have? How did
you get involved in that? Well, the

00:24:25.640 --> 00:24:30.207
, the elementary orchestra,

00:24:30.240 --> 00:24:35.026
It was very, very small. I mean just
uh, I say five or six people in the

00:24:35.059 --> 00:24:39.746
strings that is. And, and I was one of
them in the junior high. It was, it

00:24:39.779 --> 00:24:45.306
was a much larger group of 25 or 30.
And, and I was fortunate enough to be

00:24:45.339 --> 00:24:49.607
the principal violinist in the first
chair.

00:24:49.640 --> 00:24:56.576
and in high school it was quite a bit
larger, I'd say 40,

00:24:56.609 --> 00:25:00.996
there and that's where I got most of
any orchestral experience that I had

00:25:01.029 --> 00:25:05.306
before I went to college. It was just
through that, through that orchestra.

00:25:05.339 --> 00:25:10.407
I was fortunate enough to be advanced

00:25:10.440 --> 00:25:15.036
enough to be chosen each of my four
high school years, the last of the

00:25:15.069 --> 00:25:21.556
junior high and the three upper high
school to, to attend what they called

00:25:21.589 --> 00:25:26.316
All State Orchestra, I don't know if
you've heard of that term, They have

00:25:26.349 --> 00:25:32.867
it here and in the, you know, the
phoenix area where the best people can

00:25:32.900 --> 00:25:36.887
be chosen to audition for the all
state Orchestra and it's made up of

00:25:36.920 --> 00:25:41.076
people from all over the state, the
best people and a guest conductor

00:25:41.109 --> 00:25:45.907
would be brought in and it would be a
three day event and I was fortunate

00:25:45.940 --> 00:25:53.056
enough to be proficient enough on the
instrument to be one of the all

00:25:53.089 --> 00:25:57.717
staters every year that I was there.
And in fact even better than that

00:25:57.750 --> 00:26:02.897
first chair also. So I felt as I look
back that my education must have

00:26:02.930 --> 00:26:09.367
been pretty good along the lines of
music uh, to be able to reach that

00:26:09.400 --> 00:26:14.246
level. And with not a lot of
competition there, usually competition might

00:26:14.279 --> 00:26:18.857
bring out the best in in you, if you
have anything left it here, the

00:26:18.890 --> 00:26:24.066
desire to be better. But there wasn't
a lot of competition, but I had a

00:26:24.099 --> 00:26:29.046
very caring and understanding music
teacher, Carrie Hambleton, I still

00:26:29.079 --> 00:26:35.806
remember a little redheaded woman,
very feisty and uh and we had some good

00:26:35.839 --> 00:26:41.586
music students there and there was one
girl there lois cost who was my

00:26:41.619 --> 00:26:47.207
accompanist and we even ended up in
the same college together. So she was

00:26:47.240 --> 00:26:55.006
also my company's through who college
undergraduate and

00:26:55.039 --> 00:26:58.417
those experiences I looked back and I
know that they gave me a good

00:26:58.450 --> 00:27:06.450
foundation in music, very responsible.
I think it was due to that kind of

00:27:06.839 --> 00:27:10.276
teaching that I received, that I was
able to get the scholarships that I

00:27:10.309 --> 00:27:13.306
received in the future.

00:27:13.339 --> 00:27:18.246
Um But at what point did you decide
that your music would be your career

00:27:18.279 --> 00:27:21.907
or did you decide that?

00:27:21.940 --> 00:27:29.940
Well, that's ah a little unhappy part
of of my life as I look back unhappy

00:27:30.069 --> 00:27:35.347
in that my father, I was very pleased
with the way I was getting along

00:27:35.380 --> 00:27:39.316
with the violin and what I was
producing and the accolades that I received

00:27:39.349 --> 00:27:43.387
and all that. But when it came time to
thinking about going to school to

00:27:43.420 --> 00:27:51.420
college, he was mhm, very much against
me using music as a major, I had a

00:27:52.359 --> 00:27:56.316
very fine violent teacher, private
teacher who was the concert master of

00:27:56.349 --> 00:28:03.296
the Pittsburgh Symphony, a very fine
teacher too. And but he was rather

00:28:03.329 --> 00:28:09.107
poor according to my father, you know,
he says, look at mr lucero, he's

00:28:09.140 --> 00:28:13.387
he's not making very much money and
his music as fine a violinist as he is.

00:28:13.420 --> 00:28:18.826
And and sometimes you can't even
afford to pay for the the clothes that

00:28:18.859 --> 00:28:24.157
are being repaired or cleaned and I do
it for nothing for him. He says,

00:28:24.190 --> 00:28:27.847
you don't want that. He said you have
very good grades. And I had a

00:28:27.880 --> 00:28:33.476
scholarship in in sciences, I was very
good in chemistry and physics. And

00:28:33.509 --> 00:28:39.107
I got a scholarship to go to Carnegie
Tech with Carnegie Institute of

00:28:39.140 --> 00:28:47.140
Technology in Pittsburgh, which is now
the Carnegie was called. And uh and

00:28:47.660 --> 00:28:52.506
also I had about a dozen violent
scholarships

00:28:52.539 --> 00:28:58.296
and that's what I wanted to do. And he
said, please don't don't take care

00:28:58.329 --> 00:29:02.097
of violent scholarship. He said you
can keep playing your violin, he says

00:29:02.130 --> 00:29:06.697
, but to learn to be you don't get to
be a chemist or be an engineer or

00:29:06.730 --> 00:29:11.336
physicist or something. He said you
can make a better living and be

00:29:11.369 --> 00:29:16.407
happier in life and not be like me
here I am, I have to I have to work all

00:29:16.440 --> 00:29:20.736
day and come home. And so until
midnight and get up early again too, so I

00:29:20.769 --> 00:29:27.236
can walk to to where I I have to work
and and I didn't want to make my

00:29:27.269 --> 00:29:33.707
father unhappy of course. And so I
accepted the Carnegie Tech scholarship

00:29:33.740 --> 00:29:40.117
started off in summer school and I of
course I took a lot of the courses

00:29:40.150 --> 00:29:45.486
that I needed to preliminary and all
that in depth during those high

00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:49.417
school years I say I was the presser
at home and I was a delivery boy at

00:29:49.450 --> 00:29:54.796
home. And so that was all the life
that I really knew and and then going

00:29:54.829 --> 00:29:59.427
to school like that. And after I guess
after the first summer session,

00:29:59.460 --> 00:30:03.427
going into the summer session, I told
my father, you know, I'm just so

00:30:03.460 --> 00:30:06.816
unhappy. I said I have picked up my
violin since I started school because

00:30:06.849 --> 00:30:13.506
it's so busy. I said then I know you
don't want me to to go into music. I

00:30:13.539 --> 00:30:18.347
said, why don't I just stay in the
shop with you and I'll just continue

00:30:18.380 --> 00:30:22.407
being your presser and and deliver
clothes and you know, build up the

00:30:22.440 --> 00:30:26.746
business and things like that. Well,
he was very unhappy over that

00:30:26.779 --> 00:30:30.617
decision not to the point of being
mean, I mean, but he was just unhappy

00:30:30.650 --> 00:30:35.306
that I would, I still want to do
something like that where there was no

00:30:35.339 --> 00:30:41.756
hope as far as he was concerned. And I
would say by the middle of the

00:30:41.789 --> 00:30:46.256
first semester, he said, well why
don't you see if one of those

00:30:46.289 --> 00:30:51.056
scholarships are still available. And
of course I, I said those

00:30:51.089 --> 00:30:54.756
scholarships are for the beginning of
the year. I doubt if there is

00:30:54.789 --> 00:31:01.697
anything available. And I had some
prestigious schools who uh, to Oberlin

00:31:01.730 --> 00:31:06.177
Shenandoah School of Music too,

00:31:06.210 --> 00:31:10.306
not the Carnegie Tech, unfortunately,
I don't know, but there was one

00:31:10.339 --> 00:31:15.306
school I contacted that still had this
violin scholarship available

00:31:15.339 --> 00:31:19.907
Westminster College in New Wilmington
pennsylvania.

00:31:19.940 --> 00:31:23.447
So my mother and I went up to the, we
called and he said yes, that there

00:31:23.480 --> 00:31:28.506
was one. And but I, he said I'd have
to hear you in person to make sure

00:31:28.539 --> 00:31:35.637
and make a long story short. I was
accepted immediately and uh started

00:31:35.670 --> 00:31:39.707
Westminster had to hurriedly gather
information that I had missed that

00:31:39.740 --> 00:31:47.740
first part of the semester. But I was
offered a full scholarship in, in

00:31:48.589 --> 00:31:54.957
the music because of violin playing
and of course I couldn't afford room

00:31:54.990 --> 00:32:02.990
and board. And so my room, I received
free as a result of, of being the

00:32:05.250 --> 00:32:09.826
janitor in the conservatory of music.
And what I had to do every day was

00:32:09.859 --> 00:32:13.836
after 10 o'clock, I had to sweep out
all the practice rooms, clean up,

00:32:13.869 --> 00:32:19.947
empty the waste baskets, clean up the
rooms and dust off the piano And

00:32:19.980 --> 00:32:24.207
which would take me about, I think
there were 20 rooms take me until about

00:32:24.240 --> 00:32:29.867
midnight. And then for my meals, I was
living in a freshman dorm. They

00:32:29.900 --> 00:32:34.756
made me a waiter in the dormitory so
that I got my meals free by being a

00:32:34.789 --> 00:32:38.617
waiter. And I got my room free by
being a janitor and went to school

00:32:38.650 --> 00:32:43.256
because of my music scholarship. So it
didn't cost my, my folks any money

00:32:43.289 --> 00:32:48.697
, which they really didn't have, they
didn't have it. And um, and my

00:32:48.730 --> 00:32:53.586
father was happy that I was enjoying
it and that I was

00:32:53.619 --> 00:32:58.687
progressing well with good grades, but
he still said, you know, it would

00:32:58.720 --> 00:33:03.506
have been better if you could have
gone into engineering or into science

00:33:03.539 --> 00:33:08.256
where you would have made a decent
living. What was it about that a few

00:33:08.289 --> 00:33:11.937
weeks you spent in this in the
Carnegie Institute in Science that you

00:33:11.970 --> 00:33:16.897
dislike so much? Well, mainly I didn't
like because I wasn't doing what I

00:33:16.930 --> 00:33:21.806
loved, which was playing the violin, I
loved playing the music. Uh the

00:33:21.839 --> 00:33:25.937
other thing was that being a summer
school was very concentrated and had

00:33:25.970 --> 00:33:30.357
to go to class every day and it took
up a lot of time to do all my

00:33:30.390 --> 00:33:36.556
homework and uh I just felt that I was
being torn away from the part of

00:33:36.589 --> 00:33:41.657
life that I enjoyed to do something
where I was satisfying my parents, but

00:33:41.690 --> 00:33:46.637
I wasn't completely happy. I didn't
see any results. And I just couldn't

00:33:46.670 --> 00:33:53.256
see a life as you know, as a
scientist, not a scientist, but I mean in in

00:33:53.289 --> 00:34:01.289
mathematics science, chemistry at per
se or Physics. So my life had just

00:34:03.220 --> 00:34:07.486
changed. Just just turned over what I
was doing before I was not doing at

00:34:07.519 --> 00:34:11.407
all. I was doing something that just
because I had a couple of classes in

00:34:11.440 --> 00:34:16.006
high school and that I was a straight
a students and highly recommended by

00:34:16.039 --> 00:34:21.447
the physics teacher when it came time
to apply for schools that I ended up

00:34:21.480 --> 00:34:29.327
with a scholarship and I dreaded going
into the department chairs office

00:34:29.360 --> 00:34:32.787
to say that I was going to have to
pull out or that I was going to

00:34:32.820 --> 00:34:40.106
withdraw, give up my scholarship and
all that. But I just felt I was taken

00:34:40.139 --> 00:34:45.907
out of the part of life that I enjoyed
offered to just come back to it and

00:34:45.940 --> 00:34:51.296
and my father felt that that wasn't a
good way to solve the problem and so

00:34:51.329 --> 00:34:57.436
relented and allowed me to progress to
the kind of life that I think I was

00:34:57.469 --> 00:35:01.827
going to enjoy, which I have of course
made that decision pretty quickly.

00:35:01.860 --> 00:35:07.506
Yes, I I did. And I've and I've never
regretted it. Things seemed to work

00:35:07.539 --> 00:35:12.807
out. I mean, there were problems of
course, but they're not insurmountable

00:35:12.840 --> 00:35:19.347
and I was glad to have been able to
pursue it. Well, tell me a little bit

00:35:19.380 --> 00:35:23.367
about the years you spent then. Did
you go? four years in the music school

00:35:23.400 --> 00:35:29.807
? Yes. I went to Westminster in 1941

00:35:29.840 --> 00:35:31.907
ah

00:35:31.940 --> 00:35:37.066
When the sad days was coming running
down two steps hurriedly to get to

00:35:37.099 --> 00:35:44.977
the, to the cabin to the yeah,
cafeteria is what we had at first at

00:35:45.010 --> 00:35:49.336
Jeffrey's Hall, the freshman dorm
where I was one of the waiters. Somebody

00:35:49.369 --> 00:35:52.956
said, Pearl Harbor has been bombed.
And I said, oh, come on, get out here.

00:35:52.989 --> 00:35:56.387
And I just kept running down to get
down because I had to wait on tables

00:35:56.420 --> 00:36:01.597
and two and so

00:36:01.630 --> 00:36:05.316
everybody of course was being very
patriotic and enlisting at that time.

00:36:05.349 --> 00:36:11.577
So that was my, during my first year
and I enlisted as a and accepted as

00:36:11.610 --> 00:36:17.787
an aviation cadet. And so that I went
to Westminster, I wasn't called

00:36:17.820 --> 00:36:23.497
until 1943 in February to go to the
service and go to my air force

00:36:23.530 --> 00:36:29.606
assignment so that I had a year and a
half of Westminster and I was in the

00:36:29.639 --> 00:36:37.387
service until Uh June of 1946, 3 years
and three months I think it was

00:36:37.420 --> 00:36:40.787
when I went back to Westminster and
then went to summer school straight

00:36:40.820 --> 00:36:47.697
through. And and got my degree program
at that time from Westminster

00:36:47.730 --> 00:36:54.157
graduated there in 1940 eight january

00:36:54.190 --> 00:37:00.146
and I I felt that I wanted to get my
masters degree too. So I applied to

00:37:00.179 --> 00:37:06.436
Columbia University in January 1948
And was accepted and got my degree by

00:37:06.469 --> 00:37:13.347
August of 1948. So I went to that
intercession that we're between

00:37:13.380 --> 00:37:18.126
semesters and then the full semester,
which would be the second semester

00:37:18.159 --> 00:37:23.847
and then pre summer school, two Summer
Sessions and Post Summer School, I

00:37:23.880 --> 00:37:31.880
was able to get all my 32 hours of of
my graduate program. And and also as

00:37:32.889 --> 00:37:35.936
a reflection of the training that I
had received, not only at Westminster

00:37:35.969 --> 00:37:42.126
, but in the high schools, all the
entries tests that I had to take in

00:37:42.159 --> 00:37:47.637
order to get into advanced classes I
passed off, which they, they said

00:37:47.670 --> 00:37:50.967
they couldn't believe that there had
to be something wrong because people

00:37:51.000 --> 00:37:55.387
don't all pass pass off their entry
exams and have to take bonehead

00:37:55.420 --> 00:38:00.477
courses and in certain courses. And so
that's why I was able to do

00:38:00.510 --> 00:38:06.807
everything in just about 3/4 of a year
Because I had a contract to teach

00:38:06.840 --> 00:38:11.736
in midland pennsylvania in the
September of 1948, so I had to be done

00:38:11.769 --> 00:38:17.227
period, I had to have my master's
degree. And so as I recall that I was

00:38:17.260 --> 00:38:22.467
the only one that had ever done that
started in january and graduated in

00:38:22.500 --> 00:38:27.646
august um why don't you go back and
talk a little bit about those warriors.

00:38:27.679 --> 00:38:32.276
Um you know, when did you actually
enlist?

00:38:32.309 --> 00:38:39.276
Well I had listened just shortly after
uh the war, see this was December

00:38:39.309 --> 00:38:45.467
of 41 and I think by March or april

00:38:45.500 --> 00:38:49.736
the different services had their
recruiters all over the schools and and

00:38:49.769 --> 00:38:57.769
they didn't miss my school and and I
was all just gung ho to go and I,

00:38:58.940 --> 00:39:06.517
yeah, I guess I had planned to enlist
just any army and the army Air force

00:39:06.550 --> 00:39:10.456
, which is what it was called, then

00:39:10.489 --> 00:39:16.217
also had recruiters and talked me into
becoming an aviation cadet because

00:39:16.250 --> 00:39:20.097
they like to have college students
going to cadet training and then you

00:39:20.130 --> 00:39:26.287
either became a pilot to bombardier or
navigator

00:39:26.320 --> 00:39:34.320
And then I was called in February of
40 43 and uh I was sent to Miami

00:39:34.360 --> 00:39:42.360
Beach for my basic training And uh and
I started in the pilot program and

00:39:43.190 --> 00:39:47.367
I was about two thirds of the way
through the pilot program when they, so

00:39:47.400 --> 00:39:53.026
I changed the rules, so to speak so
that I was a half inch too short for

00:39:53.059 --> 00:39:57.566
pilot because of the necessary size,
leg and everything else that was

00:39:57.599 --> 00:40:04.626
needed. And so I changed over to
Bombardier School, which is what I

00:40:04.659 --> 00:40:07.677
graduated in.

00:40:07.710 --> 00:40:14.267
I had to go through to Kent State
University for all my my courses and

00:40:14.300 --> 00:40:21.566
navigation and and more science and uh
and so all that time now I'm not

00:40:21.599 --> 00:40:28.126
playing the violin anymore. And that
was then it was assigned to san

00:40:28.159 --> 00:40:36.159
Antonio Aviation Cadet Center to do
more, more work. And uh while while

00:40:37.059 --> 00:40:44.677
they're san Antonio sack as it was
called had a big music program. The man

00:40:44.710 --> 00:40:52.106
who was in charge of the special
services dr Hugh thomas who was formerly

00:40:52.139 --> 00:40:58.566
conductor of excuse me, conductor of a
coral group as well as the head of

00:40:58.599 --> 00:41:05.037
the voice department was the
commanding officer of the Special services,

00:41:05.070 --> 00:41:09.867
talked me into playing in the small
orchestras they had with this coral

00:41:09.900 --> 00:41:15.577
group and I said, well that would be
great. You know, I stood with my

00:41:15.610 --> 00:41:20.827
classes usually by 4:00 and so I was
available in the evenings. So I ended

00:41:20.860 --> 00:41:26.557
up doing Bombardier School actually
not Bombardier then completely because

00:41:26.590 --> 00:41:33.177
Bombardier School was in Ellington
field which is and another post another

00:41:33.210 --> 00:41:39.666
bass and okay doing both of them
together. So I was keeping up my music or

00:41:39.699 --> 00:41:43.706
getting back into it. I think I'm
playing my violin and doing some copy

00:41:43.739 --> 00:41:49.947
work and they had radio program in san
Antonio that went all over the

00:41:49.980 --> 00:41:57.197
country was called the, the Skyline
Patrol. And it was an hour of music

00:41:57.230 --> 00:42:04.666
where they had a stage band, a string
section, the chorus and the

00:42:04.699 --> 00:42:10.146
comedians and it's the real variety
show. And so I was enjoying that a lot

00:42:10.179 --> 00:42:15.526
as I was going through through
Bombardier training as well as pilot

00:42:15.559 --> 00:42:17.666
training

00:42:17.699 --> 00:42:25.699
to make a long story short. The, the,
I did graduate in the Bombardier at

00:42:25.789 --> 00:42:30.467
the school and was ready to be
commissioned and I've been doing so much in

00:42:30.500 --> 00:42:32.967
the music

00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:40.017
and there was getting ready to be
shipped out after the, after we were

00:42:40.050 --> 00:42:42.666
going to be

00:42:42.699 --> 00:42:46.506
graduated, so to speak. You know, we
would get our commission and all that

00:42:46.539 --> 00:42:54.539
and and there were problems in the
entertainment along the entertainment

00:42:54.940 --> 00:43:01.206
lines overseas with the um I can't
even recall what they called the

00:43:01.239 --> 00:43:07.836
program where the people would, oh
troops would go to, I mean, but groups

00:43:07.869 --> 00:43:12.827
of entertainers would go to the troops
and entertain them overseas. And

00:43:12.860 --> 00:43:18.177
the USO is what I was trying to think
of and I guess things were getting

00:43:18.210 --> 00:43:25.767
rather uh naughty, the girls thought
that the men wanted to see scantily

00:43:25.800 --> 00:43:32.117
clad women and and off color jokes and
and not so much entertainment as

00:43:32.150 --> 00:43:39.967
far as music or anything else. And we
in san Antonio

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:46.497
A lot of the bombardiers by 1940 three
in 1940. For which is about when I

00:43:46.530 --> 00:43:51.997
was, things were getting a little
better over in the japanese. Uh, and the

00:43:52.030 --> 00:43:57.236
, all the islands in between the
United States and Japan where they needed

00:43:57.269 --> 00:44:00.456
less bombardiers.

00:44:00.489 --> 00:44:05.887
And so we were doing more and more
entertaining. And there were 10 of us

00:44:05.920 --> 00:44:13.456
who were cadets and had been
bombardier's as well as pilots

00:44:13.489 --> 00:44:17.486
who had just sort of formed a little
group and entertainment group. And we

00:44:17.519 --> 00:44:22.997
went into the hospitals and
entertained people in their rooms or groups in

00:44:23.030 --> 00:44:27.956
the hospital and

00:44:27.989 --> 00:44:32.227
were evidently successful enough that
they, that we stayed as a unit that

00:44:32.260 --> 00:44:37.327
the special services. Well, when it
came time to going overseas, I said,

00:44:37.360 --> 00:44:44.956
well uh dr thomas or captain thomas at
the time, You thomas said,

00:44:44.989 --> 00:44:48.916
how would you like the idea about
going over as an entertainment unit? Are

00:44:48.949 --> 00:44:55.267
you kidding? I said, we're
bombardiers. And uh, he says yes, but the need

00:44:55.300 --> 00:45:01.066
is lessons now. You know, you, you
really could do more good for the war

00:45:01.099 --> 00:45:05.767
effort by entertaining the soldiers
and right now they are more amenable

00:45:05.800 --> 00:45:12.046
to to seeing their own entertain them
than to have some of these people

00:45:12.079 --> 00:45:18.967
who just come in and uh do a few
dances and a lot of off color jokes and

00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:25.106
and dances uh and and not really doing
too much entertaining and while in

00:45:25.139 --> 00:45:29.986
our entertainment group we had, There
were 10 of us, one of them, the

00:45:30.019 --> 00:45:34.907
guitarist was, I get started with Mary
Kaye trio at the time was a very

00:45:34.940 --> 00:45:42.347
well known trio. And uh Peter lind
Hayes was the comedian. Uh I don't know

00:45:42.380 --> 00:45:48.617
who to compare him with now uh like
but he was the comedian of the, of the

00:45:48.650 --> 00:45:54.537
day, Peter lind Hayes and The
accordion player was the former accordionist

00:45:54.570 --> 00:45:59.157
of the three sons a trio. And you
know, we just had 10 people and here I

00:45:59.190 --> 00:46:05.807
was a classically trained violinist
but played the pop too. And uh and

00:46:05.840 --> 00:46:10.347
then four of us got together and we
formed a vocal quartet so that we

00:46:10.380 --> 00:46:16.856
could sing anyhow. We were all
formerly cadets. And uh the cadets, there

00:46:16.889 --> 00:46:22.867
were called gadgets. I don't know how
that came about. G A D J E T S. And

00:46:22.900 --> 00:46:27.876
so we called ourselves our group, the
grounded gadgets. And we made quite

00:46:27.909 --> 00:46:32.697
a name for ourselves. And I was just
so surprised that we were all

00:46:32.730 --> 00:46:36.236
surprised that

00:46:36.269 --> 00:46:41.887
the doctor tom keep calling him dr
thomas. Captain thomas had approached

00:46:41.920 --> 00:46:49.920
the the the general of the sack to
appeal to Secretary of War Paterson

00:46:50.079 --> 00:46:55.637
that this group of people, which is an
unusual group That has been giving

00:46:55.670 --> 00:47:03.670
shows in hospital 78 times a day and
being successful at it And they were

00:47:04.679 --> 00:47:12.186
all Bombardier's graduates. But but
the need is not there anymore. And uh

00:47:12.219 --> 00:47:18.506
what would you think about them going
overseas as a unit group and well

00:47:18.539 --> 00:47:23.066
that they weren't so sure that that
was a good idea. But finally relented

00:47:23.099 --> 00:47:25.577
and said, but only one basis that
they'd have to relinquish their

00:47:25.610 --> 00:47:30.646
commission and maybe we'd give him uh

00:47:30.679 --> 00:47:36.227
maybe a corporal or a sergeant rank
and go over as a, as a unit as well as

00:47:36.260 --> 00:47:40.046
it turned out. That's what we did. We
decided that we since it was, we

00:47:40.079 --> 00:47:43.447
were just gonna be laying around and
who knows what we were going to do.

00:47:43.480 --> 00:47:47.657
We'd already been to hawaii and back
because there was nothing to do

00:47:47.690 --> 00:47:52.387
there. We were at Hickam field and
stationed there and nothing to do. We

00:47:52.420 --> 00:47:55.876
just sat around so we just gave
programs there. So we came back to the

00:47:55.909 --> 00:48:02.307
States and and grew regroup to the
point where they assigned us a pilot

00:48:02.340 --> 00:48:07.367
assigned us an airplane, bought us
material equipment and we went over as

00:48:07.400 --> 00:48:13.947
an entertainment group. So here it is.
I started off as a bomber dear. I

00:48:13.980 --> 00:48:16.617
went through all the training, I went
through most of the pilot training,

00:48:16.650 --> 00:48:20.137
I went through all of the bombardier
training, ready to be commissioned,

00:48:20.170 --> 00:48:24.436
ended up being an entertainer and as a
result of our entertaining, we

00:48:24.469 --> 00:48:29.367
covered, they claim about 30,000 miles
with our we went, we hit every

00:48:29.400 --> 00:48:35.736
island Guam Tinian SaiPan Iwo Jima,
Okinawa Petaluma, I mean just every

00:48:35.769 --> 00:48:40.287
one of them and back and forth
crisscrossing And just gave as many as

00:48:40.320 --> 00:48:47.586
seven he chose a day. We call them
shows and we just and and for all our

00:48:47.619 --> 00:48:52.006
efforts we received the Bronze star
all of us, they thought that we had

00:48:52.039 --> 00:48:58.137
done so much for the effort and all
that. So those are my glorious

00:48:58.170 --> 00:49:03.256
fighting days, so to speak, ended up
in Japan in Tokyo, stayed in the

00:49:03.289 --> 00:49:09.227
Cairo hotel right across the water
from the Emperor's palace and gave lots

00:49:09.260 --> 00:49:15.907
of shows there and went to Okinawa. Um
we were there of course in Tokyo

00:49:15.940 --> 00:49:19.847
and Yokohama and and all those
different areas and give lots of programs

00:49:19.880 --> 00:49:25.617
and radio programs too. So you
actually saw more of the war than you would

00:49:25.650 --> 00:49:31.486
if you were actually a pilot or Yes,
definitely, that's right. I did do

00:49:31.519 --> 00:49:35.456
some substitute bombardier work. It
wasn't bombardier though, it was

00:49:35.489 --> 00:49:39.626
dropping care packages but we did by
dropping them, you know, via

00:49:39.659 --> 00:49:46.217
parachute uh where there were camps of
of prisoners still and I don't know

00:49:46.250 --> 00:49:49.206
how we were allowed to do that without
being shot down or anything like

00:49:49.239 --> 00:49:56.727
that. But we did, we were in Okinawa
and well not in Iwo Jima Jima, our

00:49:56.760 --> 00:50:03.166
camp was right at the foot of Mount
Suribachi and not a nice place.

00:50:03.199 --> 00:50:10.026
There's just too many dead bodies
still in the caves, you know.

00:50:10.059 --> 00:50:12.867
So you must have had some interesting
experiences. They're going to all

00:50:12.900 --> 00:50:17.566
those places very well interesting.
Uh, in lots of ways. One time we were

00:50:17.599 --> 00:50:21.227
in uh

00:50:21.260 --> 00:50:25.347
wasn't a hurricane, but any other art
are all our concept huts were all

00:50:25.380 --> 00:50:28.907
blown away and we had to get under the
floors to save our equipment and

00:50:28.940 --> 00:50:34.427
ourselves and, and only to come out
and find nothing left but the floors

00:50:34.460 --> 00:50:40.477
of all the buildings, lots of nice
experiences with the, with the

00:50:40.510 --> 00:50:46.546
audiences. I don't know that we were
ever booed. The only problem is we

00:50:46.579 --> 00:50:49.276
did have that there were still some
snipers that were still not in the

00:50:49.309 --> 00:50:55.736
hills and our backdrop that had our
logo and everything on it had bullet

00:50:55.769 --> 00:51:02.037
holes in it and you know, we're being
shot at. But I think the nice thing

00:51:02.070 --> 00:51:05.236
was to have people come up from the
audience that were your former high

00:51:05.269 --> 00:51:11.506
school or college mate or people that
knew people that knew us and and we

00:51:11.539 --> 00:51:15.697
just have a great time. And the navy
was always so nice to us. They always

00:51:15.730 --> 00:51:19.126
had the good food and they would take
us to their ship and we would get

00:51:19.159 --> 00:51:24.637
ice cream, wow. Never had ice cream in
the army, the army because we were

00:51:24.670 --> 00:51:31.477
part of the army, not the air force
and our food was not as good. And so

00:51:31.510 --> 00:51:34.697
yes, we had lots of nice experiences
and we would play for officers clubs

00:51:34.730 --> 00:51:39.497
where they actually would pay us Give
us money, you know, which I don't

00:51:39.530 --> 00:51:44.077
think it was allowed, but they always
ended up saying dividing, say, well

00:51:44.110 --> 00:51:50.026
here we've been given $400 and which
divided among you all,

00:51:50.059 --> 00:51:57.467
we had good experiences, not your
typical war or what you got. How did you

00:51:57.500 --> 00:52:01.727
keep that name? The grounded gadgets
for that whole time that we were

00:52:01.760 --> 00:52:07.867
together? Yes. And when it came time
to that we had, then you amassed

00:52:07.900 --> 00:52:12.657
points. You have got, I think two
points for every month that you were

00:52:12.690 --> 00:52:17.747
overseas and one point for every time
for every month of just being in the

00:52:17.780 --> 00:52:23.276
states. And you had to have, I think
when it was time for us to graduate,

00:52:23.309 --> 00:52:31.309
we had had to have 88 points. And so
by, by february, I guess it was, we

00:52:32.650 --> 00:52:39.537
had all achieved our 88 points and we
could be sent home and they

00:52:39.570 --> 00:52:44.977
presented a mhm. An idea to us is how
would you like to just stay together

00:52:45.010 --> 00:52:53.010
, not not be discharged, stay together
and maybe go off into china to, to

00:52:53.079 --> 00:52:59.296
give programs too. And you know, we've
been doing this for so long. It

00:52:59.329 --> 00:53:04.847
seemed to us, uh and all those shows
and we weren't worn down or anything

00:53:04.880 --> 00:53:09.367
like that, but it was, you know, it
should be nice to get home and and all

00:53:09.400 --> 00:53:15.887
that. And a lot of us had broke, our
college days have been splintered, so

00:53:15.920 --> 00:53:18.717
to speak. We had

00:53:18.750 --> 00:53:22.086
all at least a year and a half or two
years of college and we wanted to

00:53:22.119 --> 00:53:27.787
get our degrees and so we opted to not
go. And there was another group

00:53:27.820 --> 00:53:33.217
that was following much along the
lines that we were and so they got to go

00:53:33.250 --> 00:53:37.316
and they never made it. Their plane
went down.

00:53:37.349 --> 00:53:42.416
So again another blessing from the
bottom of it.

00:53:42.449 --> 00:53:48.066
We we made a good decision and so I
was back in school by by late March

00:53:48.099 --> 00:53:52.986
and just sort of picking up the late
long lost strings. Are there any

00:53:53.019 --> 00:53:59.477
films or recordings of you? I have
recordings. They were all at that time

00:53:59.510 --> 00:54:04.896
of course in the dark ages. And they
had these platters. They call them

00:54:04.929 --> 00:54:08.447
shellac platters where they you cut
your own record and they're not much

00:54:08.480 --> 00:54:14.557
good beyond maybe a dozen plays
because they were would wear out. So I

00:54:14.590 --> 00:54:20.736
have those and some of those live re
recorded onto tape. And then now the

00:54:20.769 --> 00:54:25.227
tape is getting to the point which so
if there's anything left that I can

00:54:25.260 --> 00:54:29.537
put on the C. D. I think I will
because my my son keeps getting asking me

00:54:29.570 --> 00:54:34.506
to do something about those and you
got to preserve them. I'm sure some of

00:54:34.539 --> 00:54:38.057
your performances were probably filmed
too weren't they? They must have

00:54:38.090 --> 00:54:45.787
been I never saw them. I never did see
them and I don't know how if the

00:54:45.820 --> 00:54:51.657
if the films or the tv programs could
be could have been re showing to

00:54:51.690 --> 00:54:56.706
other people in the States. I don't
know,

00:54:56.739 --> 00:55:00.077
well that sounds like quite a, quite
an experience. So your group just

00:55:00.110 --> 00:55:05.907
broke up and always your separate
ways. We all went our separate ways.

00:55:05.940 --> 00:55:12.217
The guitarist who went back to to his
sisters, his sister mary. Kay, his

00:55:12.250 --> 00:55:16.787
name was norman kehui. It was
Hawaiian, but they went by k because nobody

00:55:16.820 --> 00:55:22.787
could remember chi hui and and
evidently they were so successful that he

00:55:22.820 --> 00:55:28.566
amassed a fortune in las Vegas and
buying up land and and the our

00:55:28.599 --> 00:55:35.407
announcer when became back to the
States and ended up being an announcer

00:55:35.440 --> 00:55:39.956
and one of the large stations in
Minneapolis. Peter lind Hayes of course

00:55:39.989 --> 00:55:47.989
went back into the, into the comedian
routine on radio and tv and we were

00:55:50.159 --> 00:55:54.046
all going to get together one time,
but we could never, in fact, I think

00:55:54.079 --> 00:55:58.717
it was norman who had a dollar bill
and he said, let's all sign this

00:55:58.750 --> 00:56:04.427
dollar bill. He said, I'm going to cut
it up in 10 pieces. He says, each

00:56:04.460 --> 00:56:08.606
one of us gets a piece, he says one
day let's get together, put the bill

00:56:08.639 --> 00:56:14.947
together and spend it. Big spenders.
We never did. We all have our, I

00:56:14.980 --> 00:56:19.537
guess all have our little pieces that
just,

00:56:19.570 --> 00:56:24.497
it really is. I think it's kind of sad
to me, People probably passed on by

00:56:24.530 --> 00:56:31.106
now you came back from the military
determined to go back to school. Yes.

00:56:31.139 --> 00:56:35.447
G I benefits by then, correct. That
was a nice thing, Very nice about that

00:56:35.480 --> 00:56:40.586
a little bit. Well the G. I. Uh as a
result of that I had so many

00:56:40.619 --> 00:56:46.197
semesters of schooling available to
me. And so I naturally took advantage

00:56:46.230 --> 00:56:51.497
of it and um I was able to finish my
undergraduate work and it paid for

00:56:51.530 --> 00:56:58.537
all of my my graduate my master's
degree. And I think it just about came

00:56:58.570 --> 00:57:04.646
out right where I had used up my my G.
I. Bill of rights. By the time I

00:57:04.679 --> 00:57:09.836
received my master's degree, you
shouldn't have to be a janitor. No, no in

00:57:09.869 --> 00:57:14.986
fact, well the only thing that I did
while I was at Columbia, my violin

00:57:15.019 --> 00:57:22.276
teacher was at the time a very well
known pedagogue uh and written quite a

00:57:22.309 --> 00:57:29.697
few methods for the violin George.
Born off his name and

00:57:29.730 --> 00:57:35.776
he had many manuscripts that had to be
uh transcribed written on so they

00:57:35.809 --> 00:57:42.046
could be copied to sell. And all my
years in the Air Force with this music

00:57:42.079 --> 00:57:47.796
radio program where I was one of the
copyists, in fact became head copyist.

00:57:47.829 --> 00:57:53.747
And uh I developed quite a good uh
ability to to write music on you know

00:57:53.780 --> 00:57:57.796
on the paper. And and so

00:57:57.829 --> 00:58:03.057
dr born off said I'll tell you what he
said, I'd like to hire you with

00:58:03.090 --> 00:58:07.586
your manuscript ability. He said I
have to submit something to publishers.

00:58:07.619 --> 00:58:12.537
And uh and if if it can be submitted
in a in a state where the manuscript

00:58:12.570 --> 00:58:17.276
is very clear, it'll save setting up
etcetera, etcetera. He says, and I'll

00:58:17.309 --> 00:58:21.887
pay you a penny a measure.

00:58:21.920 --> 00:58:25.936
But it was amazing how many thousands
and thousands of majors there were.

00:58:25.969 --> 00:58:31.157
And so I was able to uh, to make
enough to at least pay for my food. It

00:58:31.190 --> 00:58:36.057
was just very, very nice and nice and
handy. So that's the only thing that

00:58:36.090 --> 00:58:39.626
I did during my master's work

00:58:39.659 --> 00:58:45.836
I was living in, I had rented a
bedroom, in an apartment, in an apartment

00:58:45.869 --> 00:58:52.887
building. And uh, nice kindly elderly
lady who rented this room to me. And

00:58:52.920 --> 00:58:57.526
I didn't mind my practicing in the
room as long as it wasn't before, so

00:58:57.559 --> 00:59:01.927
and so, and after so, and so, um, and
I had to had to do something like

00:59:01.960 --> 00:59:06.526
that because at Columbia in new york
things are so crowded that there were

00:59:06.559 --> 00:59:11.037
very few practice rooms. In fact we
would practice outside. We would go to

00:59:11.070 --> 00:59:17.146
the top floor of Teachers College
saying there would be like a roof area

00:59:17.179 --> 00:59:20.787
with brick,

00:59:20.820 --> 00:59:23.747
the part that sort of completed the
building, but yet it was just sort of

00:59:23.780 --> 00:59:26.986
an empty spot. And there were people
standing sitting all over the place,

00:59:27.019 --> 00:59:29.756
we're standing with a music stand
there practicing their trumpet, their

00:59:29.789 --> 00:59:33.947
clarinet there, the violin etcetera.
But what could you do in the

00:59:33.980 --> 00:59:39.936
wintertime? And so luckily this lady
was was agreeable. In fact, I'd even

00:59:39.969 --> 00:59:46.387
gone to a pawn shop and I found a
violin that it was missing the box. I

00:59:46.420 --> 00:59:52.316
mean it had the form of a violin, a
place to put your strings play it only

00:59:52.349 --> 00:59:58.776
you could hear it under your ear but
you couldn't hear it beyond say you,

00:59:58.809 --> 01:00:02.186
you know, and it certainly wouldn't go
through the bedroom wall so I could

01:00:02.219 --> 01:00:08.407
practice still 10, at night and not be
heard. And all I had to do was

01:00:08.440 --> 01:00:11.347
really work on my tone during the day.
This because you couldn't do

01:00:11.380 --> 01:00:14.367
anything with your tone, you could
listen to pitch, you could practice

01:00:14.400 --> 01:00:21.157
your technique and things like that.
But uh that was the only time that I

01:00:21.190 --> 01:00:25.066
was able to do any, any kind of work
there without copying in order to pay

01:00:25.099 --> 01:00:30.697
for. And in fact it was one of his
also doctor Barnabas, very good friend

01:00:30.730 --> 01:00:37.566
who was a soprano and it was sort of
an understudy in the,

01:00:37.599 --> 01:00:45.506
in the met and she offered to cook
meals or I could eat meals with her if

01:00:45.539 --> 01:00:48.046
I paid her a certain amount. So it was
a one way for her to make a little

01:00:48.079 --> 01:00:52.767
money and certainly I could get home
cooked meals too. So my pennies,

01:00:52.800 --> 01:00:59.336
bought quite a few meals, pennies a
measure. Um Why were you so determined

01:00:59.369 --> 01:01:04.177
to get a master's degree? The school
system that I was in demanded that,

01:01:04.210 --> 01:01:08.296
that I had to have a graduate degree,
not just the bachelors if I didn't

01:01:08.329 --> 01:01:11.697
get the master's degree, I would only,
they would only give me one year,

01:01:11.730 --> 01:01:16.467
then I would have to be in a program
where I was getting a graduate degree.

01:01:16.500 --> 01:01:23.967
School district, correct? Yes. And job
lined up. I did, I guess I had the

01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:28.686
job lined up about six months before I
got my degree and that's why I

01:01:28.719 --> 01:01:34.376
impressed upon my Columbia professors
that it is imperative that I have

01:01:34.409 --> 01:01:38.947
everything completed by the end of
that because if I don't, then they will

01:01:38.980 --> 01:01:45.436
negate the contact. Was that always
your goal to teach? Well, yes, I well

01:01:45.469 --> 01:01:52.477
know, obviously I wanted to be a big
concert violinist, you know, and um

01:01:52.510 --> 01:01:56.416
there just wasn't a lot of call for
symphony orchestras were hiring, but

01:01:56.449 --> 01:02:00.356
they weren't making very much just
like here. My teacher was constant

01:02:00.389 --> 01:02:03.896
master of the Pittsburgh Symphony. The
Pittsburgh Symphony at that time

01:02:03.929 --> 01:02:09.157
was not a, you know, a world class
orchestra is a very fine orchestra, but

01:02:09.190 --> 01:02:13.186
not world class. And even those
people, here's a man who's sitting in the

01:02:13.219 --> 01:02:18.356
principal chair, probably the highest
paid person in the, still couldn't

01:02:18.389 --> 01:02:25.376
afford to, did you say let the
symphony work be his, his livelihood. He

01:02:25.409 --> 01:02:31.157
still had to teach privately. His wife
had to teach piano privately. And

01:02:31.190 --> 01:02:35.267
uh and he still couldn't afford to say
get his clothes clean all the time

01:02:35.300 --> 01:02:41.967
or his cuffs. Uh you know, his pants
shortened and things like that. So

01:02:42.000 --> 01:02:47.376
it was impressed upon me that you
know, you better not plan on this unless

01:02:47.409 --> 01:02:52.986
you just start really outstanding to
the point that you can bump somebody

01:02:53.019 --> 01:02:57.706
to get their job and so you better
protect yourself by getting a music

01:02:57.739 --> 01:03:01.816
education as well as performance
degree, which is what I did, which is

01:03:01.849 --> 01:03:06.916
what I advised my students until I
quit teaching that you better protect

01:03:06.949 --> 01:03:13.427
yourself both ways. Why did you choose
Colombia to get your? But my, my

01:03:13.460 --> 01:03:19.597
music education teacher at
Westminster, it was a Columbia graduate and she

01:03:19.630 --> 01:03:26.657
just raid about the professors always
quoted professors in her class and

01:03:26.690 --> 01:03:31.227
she says, oh if you ever get a chance
to be with dr Mursal or something

01:03:31.260 --> 01:03:35.657
like that, you just love the man, he's
just such a warm person and and you

01:03:35.690 --> 01:03:39.677
can just listen to him for hours as he
expounds upon the philosophy of

01:03:39.710 --> 01:03:45.186
education and what you should impart
and you're, you know, you're contact

01:03:45.219 --> 01:03:50.447
with students. And so I felt, see that
sounds like heaven. I I should

01:03:50.480 --> 01:03:53.506
really try to get in there and she did
her best and recommended me and

01:03:53.539 --> 01:04:00.256
they accepted me. And and at the time
the teachers college of Columbia

01:04:00.289 --> 01:04:05.497
University was the place to go to get
your degree if you, if you could, if

01:04:05.530 --> 01:04:10.177
you could get in. And I was very
fortunate that I was able to get in there

01:04:10.210 --> 01:04:18.210
, what was new york like At that time
in the late 4th. Well new york was,

01:04:19.489 --> 01:04:25.396
it was an interesting place. It was
big to me. I had the, I lived, as I

01:04:25.429 --> 01:04:29.856
said in this apartment house, it was
on 100 and fifth street and broadway

01:04:29.889 --> 01:04:37.557
ah Maybe five or 6 blocks from
Colombia and maybe eight or 9 blocks from

01:04:37.590 --> 01:04:39.756
from

01:04:39.789 --> 01:04:47.789
the poor part of, of new york. Harlem
actually very close to Harlem,

01:04:47.989 --> 01:04:55.256
lots of activity, lots of restaurants,
you know, before I had my good luck

01:04:55.289 --> 01:04:59.986
of having home cooked meals, I was
eating a meal here and a meal. They're

01:05:00.019 --> 01:05:04.086
in these little places where you sit
at the counter, people going by

01:05:04.119 --> 01:05:06.657
hustle bustle,

01:05:06.690 --> 01:05:10.876
very crowded. I had an uncle in the
Bronx, I would visit them every

01:05:10.909 --> 01:05:15.057
weekend.

01:05:15.090 --> 01:05:23.090
Riding the subways was a new
experience for me and and um some unfortunate

01:05:24.190 --> 01:05:28.816
uh experiences too, like you're
getting off at the wrong place and ending

01:05:28.849 --> 01:05:32.197
up, you know, walk up the steps and
you wonder where am I? It's not the

01:05:32.230 --> 01:05:38.546
right place. And I found that I got
off on uh 45th Street on the east side

01:05:38.579 --> 01:05:41.537
instead of the west side or something
like that. You have to go all the

01:05:41.570 --> 01:05:45.856
way back down and back track so that I
could come back to the right place.

01:05:45.889 --> 01:05:52.006
But I was overwhelmed though with what
was available there, you know, the

01:05:52.039 --> 01:05:57.947
beautiful cathedrals, the beautiful
venues where concerts were given the

01:05:57.980 --> 01:06:04.727
old schools with their great
architecture. I really enjoyed it very much

01:06:04.760 --> 01:06:10.247
what was available to you to go down
and visit Juilliard School of Music

01:06:10.280 --> 01:06:16.537
to visit the opera. Usually I couldn't
afford much more than peanut heaven

01:06:16.570 --> 01:06:20.807
seats, you know like 1/5 balcony of
Carnegie hall where you'd look down

01:06:20.840 --> 01:06:26.756
and see the stage instead of being
able to just look straight ahead. Um,

01:06:26.789 --> 01:06:30.697
but so much available to you and that
was the thing that impressed me, you

01:06:30.730 --> 01:06:35.867
know, having come from a little town
and then having come from a very

01:06:35.900 --> 01:06:42.327
protective type home life and
situation and to be there all of a sudden

01:06:42.360 --> 01:06:49.447
with all this available to you, I was
overwhelmed for at least a couple of

01:06:49.480 --> 01:06:52.356
months before I finally got used to
where I was supposed to go and what to

01:06:52.389 --> 01:06:58.407
do and and better make make do of all
the great things that you can, that

01:06:58.440 --> 01:07:02.876
you can get, weren't you tempted to
try to get involved in the music world

01:07:02.909 --> 01:07:07.876
there, the symphonies and all the
other. No, I didn't even try because and

01:07:07.909 --> 01:07:11.646
I think it was all because of what I
was hearing, how difficult it was to

01:07:11.679 --> 01:07:17.586
get in the job, get a job to get in,
there are so many people standing in

01:07:17.619 --> 01:07:25.619
line who were actually members of the
union and and they weren't getting

01:07:25.719 --> 01:07:29.376
jobs and so they had to think of them
and I didn't want to join the union

01:07:29.409 --> 01:07:32.796
there. Uh

01:07:32.829 --> 01:07:36.436
I was a little worried, scared a
little scared of joining the union. I

01:07:36.469 --> 01:07:39.686
didn't know what it was really, you
know, I just knew the bad parts of it

01:07:39.719 --> 01:07:47.186
, so to speak. And so no, I did a lot
of playing, but it was gratis

01:07:47.219 --> 01:07:54.166
playing. I did a lot of concert going
and got into lots of people, but

01:07:54.199 --> 01:07:56.646
again,

01:07:56.679 --> 01:08:01.537
nothing that I felt that I should be
nice if I could stay here. I had my

01:08:01.570 --> 01:08:06.347
sights set for going back to my home
area. And especially by then I had a

01:08:06.380 --> 01:08:14.380
contract with the school district. And
so my, my goal and my eyes were set

01:08:14.980 --> 01:08:22.256
for that one spot. Tell me about that
first job. What, what was your job?

01:08:22.289 --> 01:08:29.067
Well, it was in a town called the
midland pennsylvania and it was Lincoln

01:08:29.100 --> 01:08:37.100
high School where I was to be, uh, the
band and orchestra director. It was

01:08:37.329 --> 01:08:44.756
an unusual job. Um, in order to take
up the full day, I had to teach every

01:08:44.789 --> 01:08:50.116
student that I had in the band and in
the orchestra a private lesson a

01:08:50.149 --> 01:08:54.086
week. They all had to take a lesson
from me even though they were taking

01:08:54.119 --> 01:08:59.137
lessons from maybe another teacher, a
regular teacher.

01:08:59.170 --> 01:09:03.616
And there were so many. Now I look at
it, there's not very many students,

01:09:03.649 --> 01:09:11.649
but it wasn't a big school and maybe I
had 55 or 60 in a band and 30 in

01:09:12.199 --> 01:09:16.756
the orchestra and then all the rest
were, we're just individuals who were

01:09:16.789 --> 01:09:21.737
not good enough yet to be in an
orchestra. And but I had to teach them all

01:09:21.770 --> 01:09:26.217
every week and fitting them in and end
up being 15 minute lessons. you

01:09:26.250 --> 01:09:29.416
know, which is just in and out in and
out in and out in and out. It was

01:09:29.449 --> 01:09:33.137
very difficult. But

01:09:33.170 --> 01:09:39.876
I think that I was a violinist and my
experiences were in orchestra and my

01:09:39.909 --> 01:09:45.097
program, my educational program, of
course included instrumental music,

01:09:45.130 --> 01:09:49.857
which is band and orchestra and
ensembles and things like that. And so I

01:09:49.890 --> 01:09:53.916
was qualified to be a band director.
And uh, and that's really what I was

01:09:53.949 --> 01:09:59.737
hired. That was the biggest part of my
job. Well to be thrown into band. I

01:09:59.770 --> 01:10:03.696
was in the band, my, my violin teacher
was also the band director at

01:10:03.729 --> 01:10:07.967
Westminster College and he said, I
need a bass drummer in the band and

01:10:08.000 --> 01:10:12.006
you're going to be the bass drummer.
What can I say? I'm on scholarship

01:10:12.039 --> 01:10:15.937
that I had to take it. And so here's
this bass drum that I can't even see

01:10:15.970 --> 01:10:20.677
over. I had to look around the side
and I boned the bank, he says, but you

01:10:20.710 --> 01:10:24.317
have such a good rhythm. He said, I
can rely on. He said that and I need

01:10:24.350 --> 01:10:28.746
that to keep the band together. And so
I was a bass drummer all through

01:10:28.779 --> 01:10:36.626
through college. Only because I had
to, that's all there was to it. And

01:10:36.659 --> 01:10:40.687
but of course I was subjected or
exposed to all the banned literature and

01:10:40.720 --> 01:10:48.057
, and head courses, of course in
literature. So that when I got the job to

01:10:48.090 --> 01:10:50.847
see you understand that you have to be
the bandit. Oh, yes, I understand.

01:10:50.880 --> 01:10:55.227
And and that you'll have to, there's
no problem. I can take care of band.

01:10:55.260 --> 01:11:02.696
But oh, when I got into that and I had
never, I had never made up a band

01:11:02.729 --> 01:11:06.756
formation in my life, you know, and
spelling letters and having people

01:11:06.789 --> 01:11:09.467
going every which way scurrying
around. So they all of a sudden the

01:11:09.500 --> 01:11:16.267
picture appears on the field. So I had
to do one for every, every uh, show

01:11:16.300 --> 01:11:23.477
for every one of the games. And I
lasted, I lasted in my mind, I lasted

01:11:23.510 --> 01:11:28.706
one year. I mean, I was so, so
overwhelmed with having to teach all these

01:11:28.739 --> 01:11:30.727
lessons,

01:11:30.760 --> 01:11:38.760
60 and sometimes 80 a week. As well as
having my string class and trying

01:11:38.859 --> 01:11:41.786
to build up the orchestra's after all,
that's what my job was to build up

01:11:41.819 --> 01:11:47.616
this orchestra and keep this band
going. And uh, that I was running all

01:11:47.649 --> 01:11:53.467
the time and I was not playing my
violin as much as I wanted to. I mean, I

01:11:53.500 --> 01:11:56.847
was playing it, but very little maybe
demonstrating to a student, but I

01:11:56.880 --> 01:12:03.196
wasn't really playing. I wasn't doing
anything that was of any account. So

01:12:03.229 --> 01:12:09.857
that I think by february of that
school year, I decided I've got to get

01:12:09.890 --> 01:12:14.206
out of this situation. I mean, I hate
to give up after one year, I have to

01:12:14.239 --> 01:12:18.847
get out of this situation because I
cannot do justice to both the band

01:12:18.880 --> 01:12:25.916
program and the, as it was, I was
looking up books that had

01:12:25.949 --> 01:12:29.536
band formations and how to make them
and copying them and of course they

01:12:29.569 --> 01:12:34.487
were, that's why they existed. But the
fact is I had to make them fit to

01:12:34.520 --> 01:12:41.147
midland and spell am instead of a and
and accommodate the to the Susan

01:12:41.180 --> 01:12:44.677
phones in front and the trombones and
then the drummers had to be in the

01:12:44.710 --> 01:12:47.387
right place so everybody could hear
them and there was just so much to

01:12:47.420 --> 01:12:52.817
think about that. I said, I'm going to

01:12:52.850 --> 01:12:57.887
try to find another job and I'm not
even gonna mention bands, I'm an

01:12:57.920 --> 01:13:05.920
orchestra person period, which is what
I did. So after one year I, I was

01:13:06.409 --> 01:13:12.546
able to get a job in Louisville
Kentucky Of all places at, at a school,

01:13:12.579 --> 01:13:17.996
large school, 1100 students called
Male High School and they were still

01:13:18.029 --> 01:13:23.267
segregated. There was still a male and
a female high and so in male high

01:13:23.300 --> 01:13:28.847
school I got a job as the orchestra
director and you understand it doesn't

01:13:28.880 --> 01:13:32.387
, doesn't complete your program. So
would you please assist the band

01:13:32.420 --> 01:13:38.017
director and anything that has to be
done, you know, like uh an errand boy

01:13:38.050 --> 01:13:42.727
in a way and making sure people were
straight in their formations and

01:13:42.760 --> 01:13:47.217
maybe doing some rehearsing of the
climate section or something like that.

01:13:47.250 --> 01:13:52.906
And so in the morning I spent time at
male high in the afternoon. I was a

01:13:52.939 --> 01:14:00.347
female high and eventually we became,
you got finally got its own name and

01:14:00.380 --> 01:14:08.380
you know Atherton High, but I enjoyed
that very much nice, nice city. It

01:14:08.510 --> 01:14:12.446
must have been quite a change though.
Moving to Kentucky. It was, it was,

01:14:12.479 --> 01:14:16.057
you know, midland was rather, I don't
know if you could say it was a coal

01:14:16.090 --> 01:14:22.196
mining town, but an industrial town.
And um I had some happy moments there.

01:14:22.229 --> 01:14:30.229
There was a fine old gentleman there
who was in uh the woodworking shop

01:14:30.640 --> 01:14:36.567
and he was not married, I mean it was
a widower and then I was not married

01:14:36.600 --> 01:14:43.696
and so we sort of mhm we're pals and
we'd eat supper together and solve

01:14:43.729 --> 01:14:48.177
the problems of the world every night.
But anyhow after after supper we

01:14:48.210 --> 01:14:52.956
would go to the shop and we would make
things and he taught me how to run

01:14:52.989 --> 01:15:00.706
the lathe and and make bowls and
candlesticks and things like that. So

01:15:00.739 --> 01:15:06.836
I think it blew the ball. Yeah, very
quietly. Okay, the tape is rolling

01:15:06.869 --> 01:15:13.107
again. Um you were talking about your
experiences that in Louisville

01:15:13.140 --> 01:15:18.286
learning woodworking I think. Yes. Uh
No, that was in midland midland

01:15:18.319 --> 01:15:23.387
pennsylvania where we would um he
taught me how to glue different kinds of

01:15:23.420 --> 01:15:28.086
woods together so that I'd end up with
a block and then put it on the lays

01:15:28.119 --> 01:15:34.557
and then you can make nice bowls, you
know, and uh, which would have, you

01:15:34.590 --> 01:15:39.616
know, several woods in there and have
a nice variety of colors that would

01:15:39.649 --> 01:15:43.666
come about as a result of the
different woods or candlesticks, which I

01:15:43.699 --> 01:15:51.699
still still have display proudly and
as a result of that, you know, I,

01:15:52.680 --> 01:15:55.416
that was an enjoyable part of my job.
You would think it would have been

01:15:55.449 --> 01:16:00.977
in the music, but it was a new effort,
new endeavor on my part and I

01:16:01.010 --> 01:16:06.097
enjoyed doing the woodwork. Did you
maintain that interest later? Well,

01:16:06.130 --> 01:16:13.557
the interest, yes, I didn't have the
malaise. I never did buy a saw of

01:16:13.590 --> 01:16:18.647
course that, that I could use and do
rough work, but never got to that to

01:16:18.680 --> 01:16:24.796
the finesse type of work that was
necessary to make these other things. Um

01:16:24.829 --> 01:16:29.597
, we'll talk about your, your career
then as you moved into Kentucky. Well

01:16:29.630 --> 01:16:34.296
, in Kentucky i is a,

01:16:34.329 --> 01:16:40.737
the school was, was male high and all
the students wore uniforms and they

01:16:40.770 --> 01:16:48.156
were all very respectful of their
teachers and everything was on a

01:16:48.189 --> 01:16:51.866
military basis where you stood at
attention. The students stood at

01:16:51.899 --> 01:16:56.946
attention when they, the teacher came
in and ironically none of the

01:16:56.979 --> 01:17:00.137
teachers were officers in the service
or anything like that. We were all

01:17:00.170 --> 01:17:07.767
civilians as were they of course, but
they were ROTC though. And so that

01:17:07.800 --> 01:17:11.647
there was no discipline problem. I
mean that was heaven on earth as far as

01:17:11.680 --> 01:17:17.067
the teachers concerned and especially
comparing it to now and there was

01:17:17.100 --> 01:17:23.897
attentiveness to the Nth degree. Uh
when you stopped your rehearsal, the

01:17:23.930 --> 01:17:30.187
students would all sit in a stance of
attention like with their

01:17:30.220 --> 01:17:34.946
instruments on their knee and sitting
straight and listening to what you

01:17:34.979 --> 01:17:39.277
had to say. And and they were always
reluctant to do anything and unless

01:17:39.310 --> 01:17:43.137
you actually asked them saying now
let's just play this and asked the

01:17:43.170 --> 01:17:48.166
client section to play this or the
violin section. And so it made a very

01:17:48.199 --> 01:17:56.199
fine teaching uh situation. The uh
other school, the all girls school of

01:17:56.569 --> 01:18:01.307
course was completely different. I
mean they it wasn't an ROTC or ladies

01:18:01.340 --> 01:18:07.296
uh school for with the military
uniforms or anything like that. The thing

01:18:07.329 --> 01:18:14.116
that was so nice about there's there
was uh the girls weren't uh giddy

01:18:14.149 --> 01:18:17.996
because there weren't any fellas
around, they were all girls and and we

01:18:18.029 --> 01:18:22.876
were able to get down to work and by
far the better of the two, as far as

01:18:22.909 --> 01:18:28.607
the performance ability, the girls
group was was better. Uh Not always is

01:18:28.640 --> 01:18:33.576
that the case, but it certainly was
there. The boys were great on the

01:18:33.609 --> 01:18:38.296
football field and marching parades
and things like that. So you you have

01:18:38.329 --> 01:18:41.477
to separate orchestras that you worked
with. Yes, yes, these are schools

01:18:41.510 --> 01:18:49.510
separated by 23 miles, I think it was
and they had their own program, they

01:18:49.789 --> 01:18:56.317
had goals of course would be
different. The goal uh the orientation in the

01:18:56.350 --> 01:19:00.777
male high school of course, was
towards the military, but they had regular

01:19:00.810 --> 01:19:06.307
classes though. I mean the regular
high school classes and the rigidity

01:19:06.340 --> 01:19:09.506
was carried out throughout class to
class, you know, going through the

01:19:09.539 --> 01:19:14.517
hallways, anything like that was music
and orchestra. Was that a required

01:19:14.550 --> 01:19:19.897
subject back then? It was an elective,
It was an elective and uh there was

01:19:19.930 --> 01:19:27.930
quite a good turnout for it. A lot of
the students, two, I would choose

01:19:27.989 --> 01:19:32.576
that school and that wasn't the only
high school for males. I mean, that

01:19:32.609 --> 01:19:37.387
would just happen to be the one I was
hired in male high school.

01:19:37.420 --> 01:19:41.177
It was oriented towards the fact that
they were going to go on to military

01:19:41.210 --> 01:19:47.677
school and yeah, the training was
supposed to carry carry through was

01:19:47.710 --> 01:19:50.177
supposed to be the foundation.

01:19:50.210 --> 01:19:58.210
How long were you there? I was only
there two years. Um, I was

01:19:59.119 --> 01:20:03.937
Well backing up to 1. 1 of the, my
friends at Westminster College, a

01:20:03.970 --> 01:20:06.876
couple of years ahead of me,

01:20:06.909 --> 01:20:14.177
graduated of course ahead of me and
became the, the chairman of the music

01:20:14.210 --> 01:20:21.177
department in a high school, a large
high school in mercer pennsylvania

01:20:21.210 --> 01:20:27.017
ended up in phoenix at phoenix union
high school, which at the time was

01:20:27.050 --> 01:20:33.076
the largest high school west of the
Mississippi and had

01:20:33.109 --> 01:20:39.876
60 500 students Campus that occupied
to think four city blocks where

01:20:39.909 --> 01:20:43.366
people had to go from building to
building to go to class. She ended up as

01:20:43.399 --> 01:20:47.677
the, one of the choral directors, they
had four choral directors school

01:20:47.710 --> 01:20:54.956
was so large that it had an oratorio
society had all um men's course had

01:20:54.989 --> 01:20:59.956
the girls course, acapella choir glee
club, I mean just just a lot of

01:20:59.989 --> 01:21:06.017
offering and she was in one of those,
he had the acapella choir, the girls

01:21:06.050 --> 01:21:09.807
glee club and

01:21:09.840 --> 01:21:15.307
Helen, Helen Francis, unmarried and
then when she got married, Helen

01:21:15.340 --> 01:21:22.996
Donaldson and she was there at phoenix
Union High School and an opening

01:21:23.029 --> 01:21:31.029
occurred in the orchestra for the
orchestra's and the principal, James

01:21:31.590 --> 01:21:39.456
carter said, let's try to find a, you
know, a young gung ho person to have

01:21:39.489 --> 01:21:42.876
this, get this program because the
person was their doctor, it's wilder

01:21:42.909 --> 01:21:47.607
was very old, I mean he was in his
seventies and he was tired, I can't

01:21:47.640 --> 01:21:52.607
blame him. And and and so she said,
well I know just the person that you

01:21:52.640 --> 01:21:57.057
might like his, I was his accompanist
in high school and then he did his

01:21:57.090 --> 01:22:03.296
student teaching under me and he's
teaching in Louisville now, this was

01:22:03.329 --> 01:22:06.467
during my second year

01:22:06.500 --> 01:22:13.137
and I get this call from mr carter
saying that you've been highly

01:22:13.170 --> 01:22:18.576
recommended and we'd like to have you
come be the orchestra director

01:22:18.609 --> 01:22:25.666
director of orchestral activities here
at phoenix Union High school and I

01:22:25.699 --> 01:22:29.206
said, well, you know, I'm, I'm
flattered and all that I said, but I'm

01:22:29.239 --> 01:22:34.666
under contract and I can't just leave
and

01:22:34.699 --> 01:22:38.616
he said, well we'd still like to have,
you know, I'm sure something can be

01:22:38.649 --> 01:22:43.626
arranged, you know, in the stern voice
and but if you're interested he

01:22:43.659 --> 01:22:47.637
said, I said, and I don't know when I
can get off to come interview. He

01:22:47.670 --> 01:22:51.527
says, well this is your interview
right here. And then we talked on the

01:22:51.560 --> 01:22:56.347
phone. I said, well I'll see what I
can do. I said it sounds very enticing

01:22:56.380 --> 01:23:01.546
, you know, just glowing about the
school. It was such a fantastic place

01:23:01.579 --> 01:23:09.536
and and and told me how much Helen
enjoyed it and recommended me highly

01:23:09.569 --> 01:23:14.666
and knew that I would enjoy it and
that uh my string background and and

01:23:14.699 --> 01:23:20.576
all that and please give it, they
didn't have to go through all the

01:23:20.609 --> 01:23:23.956
federal guidelines in the hiring
people where you had to hire had to

01:23:23.989 --> 01:23:26.857
interview so many people that you
found somebody who wanted, you went

01:23:26.890 --> 01:23:34.890
after him. And so I approached my
principal and I told him, I said it's

01:23:35.939 --> 01:23:41.446
it's a tremendous opportunity for me.
I said, I said, I like my job here

01:23:41.479 --> 01:23:46.187
very much. I said, but this kind of an
opportunity just doesn't appear

01:23:46.220 --> 01:23:51.987
that quickly. It's strictly a string
job, an orchestral job And it's in a

01:23:52.020 --> 01:24:00.020
big school where I have tremendous
resources, lots available to me and and

01:24:00.159 --> 01:24:02.557
the

01:24:02.590 --> 01:24:05.607
the challenge is going to be to really
build the program that's

01:24:05.640 --> 01:24:09.666
commensurate with the school of this
size, you know, he says it isn't now

01:24:09.699 --> 01:24:15.656
because the doctor, it's Weiler has
just let down the last 56 years and,

01:24:15.689 --> 01:24:21.097
and so I presented it to my principal
as I said, then he was, he said,

01:24:21.130 --> 01:24:24.857
well I can understand, I hate to stand
in your way, is that? But it's up

01:24:24.890 --> 01:24:29.196
to the school board, you're under
contract and this and that and I said, I

01:24:29.229 --> 01:24:32.057
don't want to break the contract, I
mean I'll try to work something out

01:24:32.090 --> 01:24:38.387
the other from the other end. So
finally got to the school board and it

01:24:38.420 --> 01:24:45.017
was uh, it was accepted eventually, it
took a while, but it was accepted

01:24:45.050 --> 01:24:49.927
with their blessings and all providing
that I would stay until the

01:24:49.960 --> 01:24:53.857
replacement could be found to come in

01:24:53.890 --> 01:25:00.086
and so on. The other end on phoenix, I
can come providing a replacement

01:25:00.119 --> 01:25:04.067
can be found here and you're gonna
have to find somebody because dr it's

01:25:04.100 --> 01:25:10.156
wilder was going to retire there in
the middle of the year. And so

01:25:10.189 --> 01:25:15.777
what happened was that a student
teacher was allowed to take over with a,

01:25:15.810 --> 01:25:20.147
with a teacher though, sitting there
and being the teachers mostly, but

01:25:20.180 --> 01:25:27.057
not teaching. And the student teacher
was during the orchestral activities

01:25:27.090 --> 01:25:34.046
and I finally was released from my
contract from Louisville, which it was

01:25:34.079 --> 01:25:38.937
mixed feelings. I really enjoyed that
I enjoyed that going to the, I had

01:25:38.970 --> 01:25:42.666
just come back from the Orange Bowl of
the game and bring the assistant

01:25:42.699 --> 01:25:46.256
band director and walking up that down
in that field and the formations

01:25:46.289 --> 01:25:53.557
and the tremendous audience
participation in this great feeling. And here

01:25:53.590 --> 01:25:57.147
I was going to leave it. Tell us about
the Orange Bowl experience. You

01:25:57.180 --> 01:26:01.416
didn't really tell us about that. Well
that the experience was only in the

01:26:01.449 --> 01:26:08.446
fact that we're in a place that was so
big with so many people with such

01:26:08.479 --> 01:26:12.487
acceptance, you know what I mean? The
cheers and all that and how much

01:26:12.520 --> 01:26:19.267
they, here was an all boys school and
all all in uniform and of course the

01:26:19.300 --> 01:26:24.517
marching was superb. I mean,
absolutely, it was just clockwork. It wasn't

01:26:24.550 --> 01:26:28.987
uh where a person would be out of step
or one head bobbing up and

01:26:29.020 --> 01:26:35.506
everybody else's bobbing down and that
kind of thing. And uh

01:26:35.539 --> 01:26:42.387
we were supposed to be the band for
the home team and the night to this

01:26:42.420 --> 01:26:45.256
day, I cannot tell you what what the
name of the team was or where they

01:26:45.289 --> 01:26:53.289
were and I knew what it was, but my
age is now taking charge and uh had

01:26:53.529 --> 01:26:58.427
tremendous experiences with and with
that kind of a situation. I look back

01:26:58.460 --> 01:27:03.366
on it now, we had no problems, no
problems worrying about the, the guys

01:27:03.399 --> 01:27:07.477
ending up at the bar that the evening
or something like that. It was all

01:27:07.510 --> 01:27:11.046
strict, just strict. They all had
their time to go to bed and they all had

01:27:11.079 --> 01:27:16.946
their time to get out and practice and
and we were the band uh for that

01:27:16.979 --> 01:27:22.656
program. And so the, the adulation
that came about was just wonderful, you

01:27:22.689 --> 01:27:27.807
know, I still tingle over it, thinking
about it. Uh and we came back, it

01:27:27.840 --> 01:27:33.067
was something that we talked about,
you know, all the way back. And uh and

01:27:33.100 --> 01:27:36.687
then years after that, when I would
correspond with some of the students,

01:27:36.720 --> 01:27:40.576
in fact, one of the students there who
was my, who was my principal flute

01:27:40.609 --> 01:27:44.147
player in the, one of the orchestra's
I had in the Mail High was also in

01:27:44.180 --> 01:27:49.446
Male high when I came here to phoenix
to teach and I was playing in a

01:27:49.479 --> 01:27:53.706
pickup group for a show and he was
sitting on flute. I looked at him, I

01:27:53.739 --> 01:27:58.347
said, you know, you look just like a
kid that I used to have in school

01:27:58.380 --> 01:28:03.387
several years ago, back in Louisville,
he said, that's where I've seen you.

01:28:03.420 --> 01:28:06.487
He said you were my teacher and you
were my orchestra teacher at male

01:28:06.520 --> 01:28:12.006
high school. But anyhow, it was, it
was so nice and I hated to leave. And

01:28:12.039 --> 01:28:17.277
but but the the real part of the story
that I'd like to tell is that, you

01:28:17.310 --> 01:28:20.406
know, I had these all these
conversations with mr carter, the principle

01:28:20.439 --> 01:28:25.237
about how much he wanted me and and uh
and how pleased he was to know that

01:28:25.270 --> 01:28:28.147
there was somebody available in this
world of this country, that that

01:28:28.180 --> 01:28:33.656
would really be nice about the job
here. And I finally appeared, I drove

01:28:33.689 --> 01:28:39.217
my brand new Chevrolet from Louisville
in the winter time all the way down

01:28:39.250 --> 01:28:43.397
to uh, the phoenix, getting into a lot
of trouble with the snow is going

01:28:43.430 --> 01:28:47.196
and running into snowbanks and all
that stuff, you know? And after about

01:28:47.229 --> 01:28:52.916
four days of this, I come all the way
to uh, to phoenix union and then I

01:28:52.949 --> 01:28:59.227
come up the steps to to mr carter's
office and knock on the door and come

01:28:59.260 --> 01:29:03.597
in and I, I'm Eugene Lombardi says, oh
yes, he said, please be seated

01:29:03.630 --> 01:29:10.517
rather stern. And he wasn't long when
he said no, I want you to know that

01:29:10.550 --> 01:29:15.767
were a big school and you can see
that. And he said, we have fine students

01:29:15.800 --> 01:29:21.237
and we have lots of potential aces.
And my,

01:29:21.270 --> 01:29:25.927
my word to you is that we need to have
a good symphony orchestra into

01:29:25.960 --> 01:29:30.977
school. Now, I will give you three
years to build a school before you can

01:29:31.010 --> 01:29:34.406
get tenure. And he said, and if you
can't do that, then somebody else will

01:29:34.439 --> 01:29:37.897
have to take your place. And I said,
here's this nice man that talks so

01:29:37.930 --> 01:29:41.326
willingly beautifully on the phone.
You wanted me so much. And now he's

01:29:41.359 --> 01:29:46.536
threatening me already. I haven't even
gotten any farther than the office.

01:29:46.569 --> 01:29:50.756
But in the, as it turned out, he was
right that the kids were very nice

01:29:50.789 --> 01:29:55.866
and build up the program to the point
where it was the kind, in fact, I

01:29:55.899 --> 01:30:00.206
had about three orchestras in, by the
end of the third year back up a bit.

01:30:00.239 --> 01:30:07.656
What year was it that you came here In
1950? It came to Arizona. What was

01:30:07.689 --> 01:30:12.046
your first impression of phoenix after
this long drive? Oh well it looked

01:30:12.079 --> 01:30:15.817
like heaven because it was, you know,
I had just come from the deep snows

01:30:15.850 --> 01:30:22.366
, I mean slush, uh, you know, waddling
around all over the highways trying

01:30:22.399 --> 01:30:27.687
to avoid the black ice and, and all
that and then come to this and palm

01:30:27.720 --> 01:30:32.876
trees and all these and then it was
just heavily treed with orange trees.

01:30:32.909 --> 01:30:37.616
You know, all the citrus was just all
over the place, you drive through

01:30:37.649 --> 01:30:41.756
all that before you got into the core
of the town and the streets were so

01:30:41.789 --> 01:30:47.696
wide and these buildings are also low
houses are all on one floor and just

01:30:47.729 --> 01:30:53.307
, you didn't see houses, two floors
high. And uh, and then there's this

01:30:53.340 --> 01:31:00.217
campus and I wish, I wish you could
experience this. The, There were, I

01:31:00.250 --> 01:31:07.696
think there were 18 buildings and, and
the stadium um hmm if I could even

01:31:07.729 --> 01:31:13.137
think of what it was Montgomery
stadium. Exactly. And that was where the

01:31:13.170 --> 01:31:18.437
bowl game was played every year and
the music department occupied the

01:31:18.470 --> 01:31:24.517
whole third floor of the stadium,
which meant Maybe 12 big rehearsal rooms.

01:31:24.550 --> 01:31:30.517
It was that big. It was big as the
stadium was inside and the facilities

01:31:30.550 --> 01:31:34.067
were great and they had a science
building and they had a literature in

01:31:34.100 --> 01:31:39.567
english and literature building and of
course a big auditorium uh an

01:31:39.600 --> 01:31:45.987
administration building, a girls pe
mens P. E. It was like a college

01:31:46.020 --> 01:31:49.597
campus and you had to go from building
to building to get from one class

01:31:49.630 --> 01:31:55.546
to the other. And that was I mean the
only place that that that I had been

01:31:55.579 --> 01:32:00.286
was Westminster College which would be
like that. And uh and this made

01:32:00.319 --> 01:32:05.576
Westminster College looked like a
little tiny, maybe junior high in size

01:32:05.609 --> 01:32:09.677
because there are only 1100 students.
And here this was a 65 to 6700

01:32:09.710 --> 01:32:17.710
students and it was just awesome, just
eye opening. And but the second big

01:32:18.640 --> 01:32:25.387
disappointment after Mr carter was
that I was escorted to my room

01:32:25.420 --> 01:32:31.666
to where the orchestra room was in
session and a student was taking me

01:32:31.699 --> 01:32:36.506
there and I get up to this door and I
listened and I think oh this is

01:32:36.539 --> 01:32:41.357
awful, That's awful of sounds. And I
opened the door and peeked in and

01:32:41.390 --> 01:32:48.017
here's this student teacher struggling
with about 30 students

01:32:48.050 --> 01:32:51.717
playing and about

01:32:51.750 --> 01:32:59.017
10, I would Visualize 10 hanging out
the windows, looking at the pe girls

01:32:59.050 --> 01:33:02.366
and and others walking in and out of
the room and I guess going to the

01:33:02.399 --> 01:33:07.517
restroom. And I thought this can't be
this kept this is what I left

01:33:07.550 --> 01:33:12.557
Louisville for I had this fantastic
situation where these people were all

01:33:12.590 --> 01:33:16.116
military and like, and here these kids
are hanging out the windows,

01:33:16.149 --> 01:33:20.376
looking ogling at the girls, some of
them were outside going to the igloo

01:33:20.409 --> 01:33:23.567
to go to get an ice cream cone. Some,
we're going to the restroom because

01:33:23.600 --> 01:33:26.286
they signed their name on the board to
go out and then come back and it

01:33:26.319 --> 01:33:30.496
wouldn't even come back in. And I
thought to myself, this is what I got

01:33:30.529 --> 01:33:36.786
into. This is awful. This is what it
had gone down to as a result of the

01:33:36.819 --> 01:33:41.996
lack of attention that the other
teachers, uh, I didn't give didn't get

01:33:42.029 --> 01:33:47.937
him. So it was happiness in a way when
I got back, when I got here and I

01:33:47.970 --> 01:33:51.177
was very disappointed in what I
thought my job was going to be an employee.

01:33:51.210 --> 01:33:58.116
I really have a job to do here and I
only have three years I'm out. It's

01:33:58.149 --> 01:34:02.607
just, it's going to be very difficult.
But it just happened that there

01:34:02.640 --> 01:34:06.116
were a lot of good students in there
who refused to play in the program

01:34:06.149 --> 01:34:11.366
because it was so bad. What did you do
to try to turn things around? Well

01:34:11.399 --> 01:34:16.336
, my first rehearsal there, you know,
they were all looking at the new guy

01:34:16.369 --> 01:34:19.647
and being treated like another student
teacher. You know, let's see what

01:34:19.680 --> 01:34:23.666
we can get away with. And of course I
had to put a stop to this going out

01:34:23.699 --> 01:34:28.237
to the bathroom. Uh, just a constant
stream, you know, two or three at a

01:34:28.270 --> 01:34:32.057
time and then coming back and going
out back and no continuity in my

01:34:32.090 --> 01:34:38.506
rehearsal I had to keep Attention
going because they were used to talking

01:34:38.539 --> 01:34:42.277
and there were more, more people who
wanted to hang out looking out the

01:34:42.310 --> 01:34:47.107
window, so that that 45, by the end of
the third week, I think I had cut

01:34:47.140 --> 01:34:53.527
it down to 19, I had kicked the rest
of them out. I only wanted the people

01:34:53.560 --> 01:34:57.576
who were interested in the program
period, I mean I know you have to go to

01:34:57.609 --> 01:35:03.777
the bathroom, go before the class and
uh if you must know that if you may

01:35:03.810 --> 01:35:07.897
, but you better be back in a hurry
and I'll send somebody for you when I

01:35:07.930 --> 01:35:14.076
had to be very strict about it and uh
and after having the kind of

01:35:14.109 --> 01:35:19.487
attention that the ROTC boys had
previously, I had to try to instill that

01:35:19.520 --> 01:35:22.586
in them, not that I want him to stand
up at attention or anything like

01:35:22.619 --> 01:35:27.927
that, but when I hit that podium, it
had to be quiet. I mean after I'm off

01:35:27.960 --> 01:35:30.727
the podium, you may talk if you want
to, but once I get on that podium,

01:35:30.760 --> 01:35:35.916
that's a signal to be quiet. And At
the end of that first year, I think I

01:35:35.949 --> 01:35:40.267
ended up with about 25, there were
something, but then as the orchestra

01:35:40.300 --> 01:35:44.786
got better, the people who were into
schools that I didn't know about,

01:35:44.819 --> 01:35:49.387
they Like what they heard and say I'd
like to be part of that. So by the

01:35:49.420 --> 01:35:53.607
end of the second year, I think it was
up to 80. And uh by the end of the

01:35:53.640 --> 01:35:58.517
, well I think it was the beginning of
the third year, I've had so many, I

01:35:58.550 --> 01:36:06.227
had to start a second orchestra. So my
job was safe at the time. But a lot

01:36:06.260 --> 01:36:12.296
of good people came out of that
program. I mean by the third year, I think

01:36:12.329 --> 01:36:18.796
at least eight of my orchestra were
members of the phoenix symphony. And

01:36:18.829 --> 01:36:23.807
and a lot of those people went on to
be like Pete jolly had Pete sarah

01:36:23.840 --> 01:36:28.156
julie in my in my class

01:36:28.189 --> 01:36:34.717
and Pete jolly became one of the top
jazz pianists, downbeat, elected as

01:36:34.750 --> 01:36:39.897
probably the top jazz pianists in the
country. I don't know how many years.

01:36:39.930 --> 01:36:44.696
uh and people that went on to play. In
fact, I still correspond with one

01:36:44.729 --> 01:36:48.477
uh boy who used to play with the stan
kenton orchestra as well as the

01:36:48.510 --> 01:36:52.696
Woody Herman Orchestra. Uh and he
played for, I don't know how many years

01:36:52.729 --> 01:36:58.977
in las Vegas and is now in uh in
colorado, Fort Collins colorado. But I

01:36:59.010 --> 01:37:05.756
get in fact, there's one girl in the
symphony Florence pool Who was my

01:37:05.789 --> 01:37:10.996
principal cellist and she is still in
the symphony. That was from 1953.

01:37:11.029 --> 01:37:19.029
That's a lot that's really a longevity
of unheard of length, but as a

01:37:20.029 --> 01:37:27.177
result of that, I immediately joined
the phoenix symphony and became a

01:37:27.210 --> 01:37:32.206
member of the first violin section and
within the first, uh well it was

01:37:32.239 --> 01:37:35.487
actually within the first year I was
elevated to assistant concert master

01:37:35.520 --> 01:37:41.786
, which would be the second chair. And
uh And then stayed assistant

01:37:41.819 --> 01:37:48.977
concert master of the Symphony for 10
years. Uh and this is all going

01:37:49.010 --> 01:37:54.967
along with the, with the high school
building of the program.

01:37:55.000 --> 01:37:59.217
By then, the symphony had got to where
they felt they needed, we need to

01:37:59.250 --> 01:38:04.387
have some youth participation under
the auspices of the phoenix Symphony.

01:38:04.420 --> 01:38:11.156
And so dr Leslie Hodge, who was the
conductor of the symphony and I

01:38:11.189 --> 01:38:15.956
started the youth orchestra program.
And so the Phoenix Youth Orchestra

01:38:15.989 --> 01:38:20.187
was born, I guess in 1953.

01:38:20.220 --> 01:38:25.446
And uh it grew so big to where we felt
that we need to separate the high

01:38:25.479 --> 01:38:31.517
school and elementary school students
because musically they may have been

01:38:31.550 --> 01:38:36.267
compatible, but socially they were
not. And so we had those problems to

01:38:36.300 --> 01:38:41.027
worry about. And so we thought we'd
better make a break there. And so I

01:38:41.060 --> 01:38:43.826
was the founding conductor of the
symphony, yet the phoenix infinite,

01:38:43.859 --> 01:38:49.067
which was the elementary school. And
of course we had our problems, you

01:38:49.100 --> 01:38:52.057
know, there were so many people that
were in that's infinite, that were

01:38:52.090 --> 01:38:55.637
much better than some of the symphony
youth orchestra because, but because

01:38:55.670 --> 01:38:59.786
of age, we had to have that separation
and we have to decide what we do by

01:38:59.819 --> 01:39:06.517
do it by ability and proficiency level
or do we do it by social level age

01:39:06.550 --> 01:39:12.107
level or what. And so, you know, I was
involved in founding the seat youth

01:39:12.140 --> 01:39:17.916
Orchestra and the simple net and, and
I was also assistant concert master

01:39:17.949 --> 01:39:20.597
of the symphony and then I had my
orchestra program, so I was kind of a

01:39:20.630 --> 01:39:27.437
busy guy. I liked it. It was, it was
great and uh, enjoyed doing all that

01:39:27.470 --> 01:39:33.616
work and it was all in orchestra or
you know, no band work.

01:39:33.649 --> 01:39:41.649
I uh, stayed there actually seven
years only because the, the chairman of

01:39:43.180 --> 01:39:50.496
the Arizona State College then had
been coming to my concerts and liked

01:39:50.529 --> 01:39:55.527
what I was doing. And evidently as he
told me later that he thought we've

01:39:55.560 --> 01:40:02.057
got to get that guy at A S U R A S C
and, and then somehow, well, I mean,

01:40:02.090 --> 01:40:05.366
here I am in one of the biggest
schools in the country with an orchestral

01:40:05.399 --> 01:40:11.376
program that was unheard of growth and
not because,

01:40:11.409 --> 01:40:14.906
well, you know, I'd like to take
credit for it, but not because of me, but

01:40:14.939 --> 01:40:19.446
it was growing because of the sheer
size of the school. And you know, when

01:40:19.479 --> 01:40:22.107
you get so many people, there are
bound to be a certain percentage of

01:40:22.140 --> 01:40:28.027
people that are of a proficiency level
that would be highly sought in a

01:40:28.060 --> 01:40:31.477
high school situation. Plus being in a
high school situation, it was like

01:40:31.510 --> 01:40:37.237
a college. I mean this high school was
one where you can get a music major

01:40:37.270 --> 01:40:41.347
and I think that's why one of the
things that helped my program, but it

01:40:41.380 --> 01:40:46.397
also brought out brought people into
the school district where you can get

01:40:46.430 --> 01:40:50.536
a music major. And this is part of my
job to when you came in as a

01:40:50.569 --> 01:40:55.557
freshman, you took music appreciation,
you could elect music appreciation

01:40:55.590 --> 01:41:01.477
as one of your courses. The third
year, you elected history of music,

01:41:01.510 --> 01:41:06.137
which was a continuation of the music
appreciation here. You listen to

01:41:06.170 --> 01:41:10.296
records and hear about composers. When
you get to the history of music,

01:41:10.329 --> 01:41:14.616
you start putting those composers in
the right time of the, of the century

01:41:14.649 --> 01:41:18.076
or centuries. You know what I mean?
You get to learn about the style of

01:41:18.109 --> 01:41:22.256
music and all that. So there was a
follow up to that. The second year you

01:41:22.289 --> 01:41:26.586
took Fundamentals of music, you learn
about key signatures and names of

01:41:26.619 --> 01:41:32.126
lines and spaces. Basic left, 10och
left and all the little stuff that you

01:41:32.159 --> 01:41:35.376
have to learn before you really know
what you're doing in music. You

01:41:35.409 --> 01:41:39.727
learned that for a year, so that the
fourth year you took orchestration

01:41:39.760 --> 01:41:44.227
and arranging. So that means a person
with a music major in his freshman

01:41:44.260 --> 01:41:49.256
year in music appreciation. Second
year fundamentals of music, 3rd Year

01:41:49.289 --> 01:41:55.076
History of Music, 4th Year Arranging,
you know, harmony and all that and

01:41:55.109 --> 01:41:59.987
you graduated in your required
courses, but you also happen to have a

01:42:00.020 --> 01:42:05.746
music core, their music major. Well
that's why all those people were

01:42:05.779 --> 01:42:09.696
getting jobs and going on to schools
and getting big scholarships and all

01:42:09.729 --> 01:42:14.116
that because this background that they
have, they weren't learning the the

01:42:14.149 --> 01:42:18.807
A. B. CS of the, of the collapse. You
know, they knew all the base

01:42:18.840 --> 01:42:23.227
collapse basically collapsed trouble
class tender class, you know, they do

01:42:23.260 --> 01:42:26.546
all these different collapse. They
knew how to write chords they could

01:42:26.579 --> 01:42:32.277
accompany, they could, they could do
so many things. So whenever I was

01:42:32.310 --> 01:42:37.206
offered the A. S. C. Job and I went to
rehearsal there and it was very

01:42:37.239 --> 01:42:40.647
much like that first rehearsal that I
went to phoenix union, I mean there

01:42:40.680 --> 01:42:48.680
was a group of people that very
proficient group of about 12 and here I

01:42:50.109 --> 01:42:55.027
had this great big orchestra room. It
wasn't a beautiful room. I mean, as

01:42:55.060 --> 01:43:00.977
I said, it was the third floor of the
stadium and lots lots of room. I

01:43:01.010 --> 01:43:04.946
could put 100 and 50 piece orchestra
there and still have room to to have

01:43:04.979 --> 01:43:09.237
a class going on on the other side of
the room. And here I'm going to a

01:43:09.270 --> 01:43:13.836
place where that room does not exist.
The numbers didn't exist. The

01:43:13.869 --> 01:43:20.137
opportunities didn't exist. So it was
very difficult decision to make. And

01:43:20.170 --> 01:43:24.506
this, I got this knock on the door one
time and dr Ryder came to me, he

01:43:24.539 --> 01:43:31.696
said that he had he had attended my
last night's concert and he was just

01:43:31.729 --> 01:43:35.546
so impressed with it. I just wanted to
come tell me how much he enjoyed it

01:43:35.579 --> 01:43:40.666
And he said, would you consider coming
to a sc?

01:43:40.699 --> 01:43:46.366
And of course I was shocked and
paralyzed over that. It never occurred to

01:43:46.399 --> 01:43:49.916
me to, you know, to go into college
work yet, you know, I was really

01:43:49.949 --> 01:43:54.067
working hard on this program,

01:43:54.100 --> 01:43:59.967
but at the same time then I got an
offer from the University of Minnesota

01:44:00.000 --> 01:44:06.027
to come in as the orchestra director
there and uh, so I had to wrestle. Do

01:44:06.060 --> 01:44:14.060
I go to a sc, A school of 5500 with a
fledgling string program or do I go

01:44:15.130 --> 01:44:19.796
to the University of Minnesota very,
the largest school in the country at

01:44:19.829 --> 01:44:27.027
the time, a big orchestral program
colder than the dickens here. I have my

01:44:27.060 --> 01:44:33.637
home, I'm nine miles away from Tempe.
Uh, not you know, that could be a

01:44:33.670 --> 01:44:37.946
good situation. So I was thinking I'm
gonna do one of the two, I don't

01:44:37.979 --> 01:44:42.557
know which one I decided finally that
I would

01:44:42.590 --> 01:44:47.796
and of course I did decide to go to a
sc, But meanwhile, in 1953, when

01:44:47.829 --> 01:44:53.376
Helen Donaldson who was the one
responsible for me coming to, to phoenix

01:44:53.409 --> 01:45:00.597
became pregnant and decided that she
was ah going to give up her job and

01:45:00.630 --> 01:45:08.630
just raise her child and so there was
an opening for the director of, of

01:45:09.989 --> 01:45:14.357
girls glee club acapella acquired
etcetera.

01:45:14.390 --> 01:45:19.586
The, the components that that person
had to deal with was much like mine

01:45:19.619 --> 01:45:25.027
where I in the strings, had the
orchestral and chamber, the person there

01:45:25.060 --> 01:45:29.217
in the acapella choir also had to be
able to teach Oregon and teach piano

01:45:29.250 --> 01:45:33.786
because they could even take piano
lessons. You can come out with a piano

01:45:33.819 --> 01:45:38.607
major or, or take organ lessons. See,
so they were looking for a person

01:45:38.640 --> 01:45:43.687
and this happened in the middle of the
year. Well uh, they scoured the

01:45:43.720 --> 01:45:48.366
country for a person to take the place
and so they did find a young lady

01:45:48.399 --> 01:45:52.746
who had just graduated from the
University of Oklahoma to come in and and

01:45:52.779 --> 01:45:59.527
be able to teach organ piano and uh
teach the girls glee club acapella

01:45:59.560 --> 01:46:06.937
choir etcetera etcetera. And three
years later we got married. So as a

01:46:06.970 --> 01:46:12.296
result of that my wife appeared on the
scene, future life appeared on the

01:46:12.329 --> 01:46:20.329
scene and so it was nice that way too
at the time Sue Davis and Jacqueline

01:46:21.189 --> 01:46:25.717
is her first name actually, but she
doesn't use Jacqueline and she stayed

01:46:25.750 --> 01:46:31.116
there for a while until the rules of
nepotism crawled in and one of us had

01:46:31.149 --> 01:46:37.546
to leave and, and she felt that since
my program was going so well and

01:46:37.579 --> 01:46:44.196
getting growing so large and refined
so much that she should leave and she

01:46:44.229 --> 01:46:49.817
did and she took over the same kind of
almost the same kind of a position

01:46:49.850 --> 01:46:54.836
at west phoenix high school and taught
there until our first a child is

01:46:54.869 --> 01:46:57.246
born.

01:46:57.279 --> 01:47:02.387
And of course then I had to make the
decision to move on. So mm as you can

01:47:02.420 --> 01:47:07.576
see, my life has been musically
directed, but very nicely. I mean it's,

01:47:07.609 --> 01:47:13.446
you couldn't have written it any
better. I don't think it's uh,

01:47:13.479 --> 01:47:17.086
One thing I thought about, you were at
Phoenix Union than in the 50's

01:47:17.119 --> 01:47:23.467
until 57 you were there when carver
high school closed. Tell me a little

01:47:23.500 --> 01:47:29.307
bit about that time. Um, there was no
competition of course between us

01:47:29.340 --> 01:47:32.767
because they didn't have an orchestral
program there, that they did have a

01:47:32.800 --> 01:47:36.347
good band program. Um

01:47:36.380 --> 01:47:43.557
in the early days of my phoenix union,
if I had any spare time I wandered

01:47:43.590 --> 01:47:48.536
off over to the band room and helped
harvey zorn, who was the band

01:47:48.569 --> 01:47:54.616
director with his since I've had some
experiences in that first job and it

01:47:54.649 --> 01:47:58.406
will leave it in the second job in
Louisville with band. And I said, I'd

01:47:58.439 --> 01:48:02.166
be glad to help you. This was strictly
volunteer, I'll be glad to help you

01:48:02.199 --> 01:48:06.687
and help you when you get on the
field, you know, up and down and see

01:48:06.720 --> 01:48:13.406
who's out of order as far as I may be
wrong, step wrong foot and who may

01:48:13.439 --> 01:48:18.696
be late and they were making their
turns, you know, just sort of be a

01:48:18.729 --> 01:48:26.467
spotter for problems and and also
rehearsing and I got to be quite and it

01:48:26.500 --> 01:48:29.946
was really a good thing for me to do
because the band people got to know

01:48:29.979 --> 01:48:33.057
me and he got to say well, you know, I
wouldn't mind playing in the

01:48:33.090 --> 01:48:38.036
orchestra because some of them shy
away from the orchestra and north,

01:48:38.069 --> 01:48:46.069
that's long hair stuff, I don't want
that. And so I did did do that and

01:48:46.170 --> 01:48:53.437
those years were positive ones and for
me too far as growth is concerned.

01:48:53.470 --> 01:48:55.836
Um

01:48:55.869 --> 01:49:01.357
I think that good, even though the
competition was getting stiffer in

01:49:01.390 --> 01:49:05.317
phoenix because then the school
started, they started building well, they

01:49:05.350 --> 01:49:08.626
had built West High, North High was
already built and that was the only

01:49:08.659 --> 01:49:13.267
competition that I had when I first
got here and then West high was built

01:49:13.300 --> 01:49:15.857
and then East high and then first, you
know, all these others and they

01:49:15.890 --> 01:49:22.996
just started spreading out like mad uh
but they didn't negate the growth

01:49:23.029 --> 01:49:26.286
that was going on at phoenix union
because it was the school and its

01:49:26.319 --> 01:49:30.237
ironically enough now you want to
drive by there now and all you see is

01:49:30.270 --> 01:49:36.427
three buildings was on 7th street
there and but then all the other

01:49:36.460 --> 01:49:41.477
buildings that the issue I guess has
helped in the building of research

01:49:41.510 --> 01:49:46.527
and and all you're talking about when
carver closed and then some of those

01:49:46.560 --> 01:49:50.366
students came to finish, they came to
finish union and they had a

01:49:50.399 --> 01:49:57.897
different attitude and different kind
of atmosphere that they enjoyed in

01:49:57.930 --> 01:50:02.067
their school, that there was a little
easier, a little lackadaisical and

01:50:02.100 --> 01:50:07.046
stuff like that, it was rather
difficult to try to assimilate some of

01:50:07.079 --> 01:50:10.397
those people and I never did get too
many of them in the orchestral

01:50:10.430 --> 01:50:14.206
program because the orchestra start to
get to the level where we were

01:50:14.239 --> 01:50:17.637
playing music about the same level as
the symphony does the phoenix

01:50:17.670 --> 01:50:21.017
symphony. And then I guess that's why
some of the people were able to make

01:50:21.050 --> 01:50:26.987
, get into this phoenix symphony even
while they were in high school. And

01:50:27.020 --> 01:50:31.506
so consequently I never had very many
of them come in. I don't know that I

01:50:31.539 --> 01:50:36.017
had more than a half dozen people that
played or wanted to play string

01:50:36.050 --> 01:50:41.696
instruments. They would be in my
beginning classes and there were a lot of

01:50:41.729 --> 01:50:47.506
woodwinds that were available, but I
couldn't use some of the saxes or

01:50:47.539 --> 01:50:51.706
something like that. And the brass, I
don't know that I ever had any of

01:50:51.739 --> 01:50:56.996
the Carver brass. Now, the person who
took my place who had been the band

01:50:57.029 --> 01:51:04.406
director at Carver um did was able to
assimilate some of them, but I'm

01:51:04.439 --> 01:51:10.027
sorry to say that that the program
went down some, you know, as a result

01:51:10.060 --> 01:51:14.706
of that, because he wanted to bring in
some of his kids that he had there

01:51:14.739 --> 01:51:20.576
and and they weren't at the level yet,
they didn't have the background

01:51:20.609 --> 01:51:24.647
that, that mine had as a result of the
classes that they took and it

01:51:24.680 --> 01:51:27.637
wasn't because of me and I said
because of the classes that they took,

01:51:27.670 --> 01:51:34.326
which the learning just made them
better musicians and all that. And so

01:51:34.359 --> 01:51:40.286
as a result of that, my association
with some of those students other than

01:51:40.319 --> 01:51:44.326
being good friends with the band
director

01:51:44.359 --> 01:51:49.307
and uh, being known to some of the
students there because I would go over

01:51:49.340 --> 01:51:53.326
and guess conduct at times

01:51:53.359 --> 01:51:58.437
as a result of that, I got a few but
the person after that profited from

01:51:58.470 --> 01:52:00.616
that.

01:52:00.649 --> 01:52:06.656
So tell me about coming to Arizona
State College at that time. That was,

01:52:06.689 --> 01:52:11.517
what year did you actually start here,
1957?

01:52:11.550 --> 01:52:18.616
Rather small school. I think it was
5500 students. Um,

01:52:18.649 --> 01:52:23.256
my, my situation was, was quite
different like my c my rehearsal situation

01:52:23.289 --> 01:52:29.626
, we had a quant set hut where we had
to rehearse. And where was that

01:52:29.659 --> 01:52:34.517
located?

01:52:34.550 --> 01:52:38.416
I guess it's, it's located.

01:52:38.449 --> 01:52:44.916
You know, if you go out damage to to
College Gammage Auditorium to college

01:52:44.949 --> 01:52:52.717
on that corner, they're going south
was

01:52:52.750 --> 01:53:00.750
Goodwin Stadium. Yeah, I'm trying to
really going back now and

01:53:02.449 --> 01:53:08.467
let's see what else I can recollect
about that. But anyhow right near that

01:53:08.500 --> 01:53:12.217
Goodwin Stadium was this metal

01:53:12.250 --> 01:53:16.277
quantity, that's, I don't know if it
was left over from ROTC or whether it

01:53:16.310 --> 01:53:24.310
was moved over from some from some
military.

01:53:24.520 --> 01:53:29.336
Is that right, Okay. And you go into
this concept art. This is my first

01:53:29.369 --> 01:53:35.027
impression, I walk in and I and I look
at it with their risers there for

01:53:35.060 --> 01:53:41.296
the band and orchestra to rehearse in.
I look at the ceiling and it's I

01:53:41.329 --> 01:53:49.116
realized that it is egg cartons that
have been stapled or hit attached to

01:53:49.149 --> 01:53:56.527
the tops of the stadium curved part
here acting as insulation too. But

01:53:56.560 --> 01:54:03.437
mostly for the to eliminate any
reverberation or reflection and the sounds

01:54:03.470 --> 01:54:09.036
gunny sack drapes hanging down just
all the way around all this round. I

01:54:09.069 --> 01:54:13.296
look at this thing and I wonder the
first thought that was kind of novel.

01:54:13.329 --> 01:54:18.666
And then secondly, I thought what's
all that these sacks? I thought there

01:54:18.699 --> 01:54:23.296
had been maybe they were a gunny sack
um sacks that have been undone and

01:54:23.329 --> 01:54:27.446
then sewn together. But no, they were
actually part of a role of gunny

01:54:27.479 --> 01:54:31.416
sacks and that's how they control the
sound by having that in the

01:54:31.449 --> 01:54:34.227
background. And of course you're part
of them in earth places where you

01:54:34.260 --> 01:54:38.706
kept your cases and place where you
kept your music and stuff like that.

01:54:38.739 --> 01:54:44.706
And then all these a cartons that were
attached to the ceiling. I thought

01:54:44.739 --> 01:54:51.906
, okay, this is my new job, you know,
and this is uh, this is college now

01:54:51.939 --> 01:54:58.446
and uh it's going to be better hope
and I had some very, there were only

01:54:58.479 --> 01:55:04.277
about 14 or 15 I think when I first
went there in in the string group,

01:55:04.310 --> 01:55:08.237
supposed to have been more, but they
didn't always have the time free. The

01:55:08.270 --> 01:55:11.267
only way they could be in the program
is if you'd let me come in just on

01:55:11.300 --> 01:55:14.987
Tuesdays and Thursdays because I don't
have classes and you know, I can

01:55:15.020 --> 01:55:22.307
help the orchestra program that way.
And so you have to relent and be

01:55:22.340 --> 01:55:28.717
understanding of the situation for
them and uh and most of them were

01:55:28.750 --> 01:55:34.987
members of the phoenix symphony, so
the level was very high, but the

01:55:35.020 --> 01:55:39.027
distribution of instruments was very
low, very poor, too many of one thing

01:55:39.060 --> 01:55:44.017
and not enough of another. And as a
result of that it was hard beginning

01:55:44.050 --> 01:55:52.050
Doctor writer who was the chairman of
the of the music department when I

01:55:52.539 --> 01:55:57.206
came to the program when he came to
hire me dr grant fletcher was the head

01:55:57.239 --> 01:56:01.727
of the music department, but that was
going to be his last year and dr

01:56:01.760 --> 01:56:05.126
writer knowing he was going to be
chairman the next year, he I guess

01:56:05.159 --> 01:56:08.567
jumped in and decided to better fix
this program. We're gonna have to

01:56:08.600 --> 01:56:14.427
limit my my attention as far as what I
have. So that's what what it wasn't

01:56:14.460 --> 01:56:17.286
dr Reiter was the conductor of the
orchestra and I was hired as the

01:56:17.319 --> 01:56:21.706
assistant conductor except that I took
off the rehearsals and I still

01:56:21.739 --> 01:56:25.126
conducted the orchestra and he would
come in and do the couple and conduct

01:56:25.159 --> 01:56:29.116
concerts but he only did that for the
first semester, maybe part of the

01:56:29.149 --> 01:56:33.836
second, It just got to be too much.
The school was growing. I mean the

01:56:33.869 --> 01:56:39.057
music portion of the school was
growing like mad and, and he was a very

01:56:39.090 --> 01:56:43.687
good administrator rather quiet. None.

01:56:43.720 --> 01:56:48.227
Yeah, not a trouble free personality,
you know what I mean? Just such a

01:56:48.260 --> 01:56:53.366
nice person. But there was growing
like mad. He was able to get good

01:56:53.399 --> 01:56:58.326
faculty and then get good students to
come in. Okay. Alright. Then we're

01:56:58.359 --> 01:57:03.156
starting tape 3. 1st let's just go
back and tell me when you were hired

01:57:03.189 --> 01:57:09.996
here, what was your first title?
Assistant professor of music? And I

01:57:10.029 --> 01:57:15.156
taught besides assisting in the
orchestra. It was first at first semester

01:57:15.189 --> 01:57:23.189
I taught violin and viola. Not very
many. And I was Also teaching 1st year

01:57:24.489 --> 01:57:32.376
theory. I thought sight reading, which
is part of component of the theory

01:57:32.409 --> 01:57:36.696
program. I taught

01:57:36.729 --> 01:57:44.729
music in the classroom, the music for
music education. And so people were

01:57:45.529 --> 01:57:51.187
considering a full load then it was
about 12 hours And I think mine would

01:57:51.220 --> 01:57:54.496
get up to 26,

01:57:54.529 --> 01:58:02.057
hours of teaching. And in one time I,
I didn't mention it to dr writer,

01:58:02.090 --> 01:58:08.326
but I mentioned to, to somebody else.
I said, why is it that my program is

01:58:08.359 --> 01:58:13.256
so heavy and uh, I'm just, it's coming
out my ears and I just teaching

01:58:13.289 --> 01:58:18.357
violin and viola having to do some
recruiting have to teach us music

01:58:18.390 --> 01:58:21.527
education? Of course? I'm teaching the
elementary part of the theory

01:58:21.560 --> 01:58:26.586
program. And, and I'm just being
spread out of the place. He said, well,

01:58:26.619 --> 01:58:32.387
you almost have to look at it like
we're trying to, uh, make everyone

01:58:32.420 --> 01:58:37.237
understand that there was a need for
somebody else to be taken in. And of

01:58:37.270 --> 01:58:41.967
course by you being so busy proves
that we really needed you. Otherwise

01:58:42.000 --> 01:58:48.916
this wouldn't be covered. Well, okay,
It's you sort of wonder, but I won't

01:58:48.949 --> 01:58:53.876
be here a couple more years. I'll be
dead. She needed two of you. Yeah.

01:58:53.909 --> 01:59:01.909
Just, uh, well as a result, it was a
wonderful experience. And, and

01:59:03.020 --> 01:59:07.696
reflecting onto the word near my
retirement time, I realized that by, by

01:59:07.729 --> 01:59:12.887
very, the fact that I did all those
things, I understood all the problems

01:59:12.920 --> 01:59:18.397
that were, you know, like in the, the
need for the music theory and or the

01:59:18.430 --> 01:59:22.847
lack of that the students you needed
to bone up on or the music education

01:59:22.880 --> 01:59:27.336
, why the programs weren't succeeding
in the valley because the people in

01:59:27.369 --> 01:59:33.357
, in the, in the high school situation
or the elementary situation had a

01:59:33.390 --> 01:59:35.996
different, had a wrong approach to the
way they were teaching. They were

01:59:36.029 --> 01:59:39.616
just trying to teach little pieces of
information here and here and that

01:59:39.649 --> 01:59:42.897
they weren't getting sequence. You
know, that's the only way to learn

01:59:42.930 --> 01:59:48.347
music is, you know, you learn new
things as a result of old things and you

01:59:48.380 --> 01:59:51.717
had to make sure that they all
occurred, the blocks occurred in the right

01:59:51.750 --> 01:59:56.187
order. And then it makes sense to the
student. But when you just had these

01:59:56.220 --> 01:59:59.267
isolated bits of information and you
wonder when do you pull these things

01:59:59.300 --> 02:00:04.996
together and where, where do they go?
And so consequently it was a good

02:00:05.029 --> 02:00:11.477
experience. But oh I was pushed. Good
thing. I was young. Um

02:00:11.510 --> 02:00:16.227
you mentioned the quantity that you
rehearsed in. Where was your office at

02:00:16.260 --> 02:00:24.260
that time? Okay. My office was in the
old music building which became the

02:00:24.510 --> 02:00:30.296
the, what it was next door to the
library became the it was the art arts

02:00:30.329 --> 02:00:35.376
building and then it became something
else. Anthropology.

02:00:35.409 --> 02:00:41.557
And my office was on the sub floor.
You know, it wasn't the first floor,

02:00:41.590 --> 02:00:48.977
it was a the ground floor and I had
two windows and I always would see

02:00:49.010 --> 02:00:55.637
trousers and legs walking by, I never
knew who they belonged to. And it

02:00:55.670 --> 02:01:00.807
was nice. It was always cool there of
course a nice big studio violin

02:01:00.840 --> 02:01:07.536
there and then had my, my small
classes of that would be pertinent to the

02:01:07.569 --> 02:01:10.397
string program.

02:01:10.430 --> 02:01:17.866
Know gunny sacks there. It was rather
difficult to,

02:01:17.899 --> 02:01:21.826
to put anything like on the Warhol or
a picture because it was solid

02:01:21.859 --> 02:01:25.467
concrete I think right there and you
couldn't attach anything. The nice

02:01:25.500 --> 02:01:31.267
experience that I had there was the dr
Reiter was a fine pianist

02:01:31.300 --> 02:01:35.177
and he was a good composer

02:01:35.210 --> 02:01:43.210
and mhm we developed a very close
relationship. Uh the fact that he'd come

02:01:43.609 --> 02:01:48.006
and hired me and we became close and
the fact that we were in the same the

02:01:48.039 --> 02:01:55.027
orchestral program and had the same
like music and I never went out to eat

02:01:55.060 --> 02:01:58.987
, I didn't have time actually, so I
always brought a lunch and I ate there

02:01:59.020 --> 02:02:06.006
in my office dr Ryder, he decided that
he would join me once in a while

02:02:06.039 --> 02:02:11.366
and he would bring a lunch and so we'd
eat together and talk and uh and

02:02:11.399 --> 02:02:15.267
gradually it became to where we would
hurry up and eat our lunch so that

02:02:15.300 --> 02:02:18.557
we could play Sonatas, he would play
the piano and I would play the violin

02:02:18.590 --> 02:02:23.857
and we'd go through, oh all the
Sonatas were ever written and that we had

02:02:23.890 --> 02:02:29.036
this whole hour, hour and a half
before my next class or something like

02:02:29.069 --> 02:02:36.166
that and we spent quite a few years
that way, you know, they're in that

02:02:36.199 --> 02:02:41.387
place underground, so to speak. And
also down there were the people in

02:02:41.420 --> 02:02:49.420
ceramics and and uh well I don't know
every aspect of that part of art and

02:02:50.279 --> 02:02:56.696
uh so that we we had here lots of
noise going on um and people that would

02:02:56.729 --> 02:03:04.729
be doing their ceramic works and
Schomburg had his office down there and

02:03:05.350 --> 02:03:10.357
there were others who I can't even
think of now but tom hardy. Yeah, but

02:03:10.390 --> 02:03:17.166
also uh uh Mr Schooler who was the
director of the choir, his office is

02:03:17.199 --> 02:03:22.137
also down there right next to mine and
so and upstairs on the second floor

02:03:22.170 --> 02:03:25.956
with the piano teachers and they were,
they treated to this daily concert

02:03:25.989 --> 02:03:31.017
, I don't know if they could hear it.
I really don't because I think it's

02:03:31.050 --> 02:03:36.057
a solid building and probably pretty
well you'd almost have to come into

02:03:36.090 --> 02:03:40.126
the hallway right by my studio to know
that there was a violin lesson

02:03:40.159 --> 02:03:42.866
being given.

02:03:42.899 --> 02:03:47.817
Where did you perform at that time?
Where did your orchestras? Well uh

02:03:47.850 --> 02:03:55.850
there was, there was first years we
had two places. One was,

02:03:56.300 --> 02:04:00.357
when was this? This building

02:04:00.390 --> 02:04:07.317
that had a nice open area with always
pictures on the wall and it was very

02:04:07.350 --> 02:04:11.057
close to the administration building.
I think it was the registration

02:04:11.090 --> 02:04:14.887
building or used became the
registration building, the registrar's office

02:04:14.920 --> 02:04:19.057
, there was an administration,

02:04:19.090 --> 02:04:26.057
but it was next, it was next door to
it. Um and it's it's the

02:04:26.090 --> 02:04:31.227
more building and it was an open, flat
floor situation where the little

02:04:31.260 --> 02:04:35.326
orchestra sat there and the audience
was all around you and of course with

02:04:35.359 --> 02:04:39.097
the small groups that we had those
first years, that's where we gave our

02:04:39.130 --> 02:04:46.076
concerts, There was a place with a
stage, but the building was rather

02:04:46.109 --> 02:04:52.817
dangerous. They were concerned about
it falling apart, so to speak. So I

02:04:52.850 --> 02:04:56.156
do not recall more than

02:04:56.189 --> 02:05:01.036
maybe half dozen performances they're
building, was that and I don't know

02:05:01.069 --> 02:05:09.069
what it was called, the old
auditorium. Right. Yeah,

02:05:09.770 --> 02:05:17.770
no, no, no. And and so that we gave
concerts then in the student union and

02:05:18.229 --> 02:05:24.857
gave it also was on the floor because
the stage was so small and it just,

02:05:24.890 --> 02:05:28.336
and besides, it wasn't, it didn't have
good projection and all that, there

02:05:28.369 --> 02:05:32.607
was a very high off the floor, you
know, you just didn't feel right

02:05:32.640 --> 02:05:38.406
performing that, it was better to be
on the floor and No damage then I

02:05:38.439 --> 02:05:44.527
think came came around uh building and
if it was being built in 1965 or

02:05:44.560 --> 02:05:51.546
started in 65 or closed opened, I mean
64, I was on the building committee

02:05:51.579 --> 02:05:57.557
for for damage and that's interesting

02:05:57.590 --> 02:06:00.746
In 65, I think.

02:06:00.779 --> 02:06:08.546
Mhm. I was sick, was that right?

02:06:08.579 --> 02:06:12.977
So anyhow my dates, but tell you, how
did you get on the building

02:06:13.010 --> 02:06:16.717
committee for that? How did that come
about? Well, I was the music

02:06:16.750 --> 02:06:24.496
representative on that committee and
dealt with the plans, especially with

02:06:24.529 --> 02:06:28.756
the music end of it, with the
classroom part of it and not with the stage

02:06:28.789 --> 02:06:33.727
part of it, of course, the auditorium
part. And uh we liked the idea of

02:06:33.760 --> 02:06:38.546
incorporating the music along with
that because it would be so close to

02:06:38.579 --> 02:06:44.187
proximity to getting our equipment to
the stage is so much better than it

02:06:44.220 --> 02:06:47.546
had been. We've been having rehearsals
someplace else. And we asked almost

02:06:47.579 --> 02:06:52.576
, well, it was too close to hire a
truck and it was too far away to carry

02:06:52.609 --> 02:06:56.687
it by hand, you know, I mean just
between a rock and a hard place, It was

02:06:56.720 --> 02:07:03.147
kind of difficult. But um, it was so
nice to have the music building or I

02:07:03.180 --> 02:07:07.246
mean the music department, especially
the band and the orchestra, the

02:07:07.279 --> 02:07:10.876
instrumental groups there where they
had heavy equipment. We can just

02:07:10.909 --> 02:07:14.897
finally get on the elevator, go down
to the stage level and, and be right

02:07:14.930 --> 02:07:19.446
on the stage. And it was very nice.

02:07:19.479 --> 02:07:25.017
So, those last years were spent being,
uh, concerts in the Emu Memorial

02:07:25.050 --> 02:07:33.050
Union building and this nice building
being built for our future. And as a

02:07:34.670 --> 02:07:41.246
result of that, we have lots to get to
look forward to improvement.

02:07:41.279 --> 02:07:47.046
We felt that the situation as it was,
was

02:07:47.079 --> 02:07:51.397
it was difficult at best. You know,
the sound was not good in the Memorial

02:07:51.430 --> 02:07:57.126
Union. Uh, it had lots of
reverberation, lots of echo. We have to be

02:07:57.159 --> 02:08:01.817
careful what we programmed, you know,
it would come back at us two

02:08:01.850 --> 02:08:06.937
measures later and it was difficult to
try to balance.

02:08:06.970 --> 02:08:11.437
I had one interesting thing happened.

02:08:11.470 --> 02:08:17.866
My my wife and and daughter, I don't
think my son was there. We're at this

02:08:17.899 --> 02:08:24.237
concert. My daughter was very small,
maybe two years old.

02:08:24.270 --> 02:08:30.256
We're giving a concert before the
concert came. I came out and they

02:08:30.289 --> 02:08:36.366
recorded all the concerts I came out
and and out pops out. That's my daddy.

02:08:36.399 --> 02:08:41.777
That was my my daughter who was
sitting in the front row and and so that

02:08:41.810 --> 02:08:47.206
was kind of unnerving at first. But
then that same concert after the

02:08:47.239 --> 02:08:51.237
concert was over. Um

02:08:51.270 --> 02:08:59.270
I came out the applause I came out of
the of the emu building. The

02:09:00.569 --> 02:09:08.036
what was that room called? The
activity room No and the emu

02:09:08.069 --> 02:09:11.027
I'm trying to get the concert place
you know it was like a dance hall and

02:09:11.060 --> 02:09:17.987
it was also eating place and it was
the second, the second floor with that

02:09:18.020 --> 02:09:24.866
big room where the concerts in the in
the Memorial Union building, the

02:09:24.899 --> 02:09:29.307
ballroom. Alright there was a
ballroom. Okay, that's where we had all our

02:09:29.340 --> 02:09:32.937
performances. Well I was coming off at
the end of that concert and

02:09:32.970 --> 02:09:36.517
somebody was standing out there and
said the President has been shot and I

02:09:36.550 --> 02:09:40.456
said come on and I just walked back
out from my second bow and third bow

02:09:40.489 --> 02:09:44.036
and stuff like that. He came out to
find that president Kennedy had been

02:09:44.069 --> 02:09:46.517
had been assassinated.

02:09:46.550 --> 02:09:53.217
It was kind of a sad moment at that
time, difficult

02:09:53.250 --> 02:09:58.336
to understand. Yes, mm hmm.

02:09:58.369 --> 02:10:02.737
So once Gammage was finished then that
must have been quite a change for

02:10:02.770 --> 02:10:08.126
you. Oh it was it was heaven. It was
really heaven on Earth. My office is

02:10:08.159 --> 02:10:14.286
on the 4th floor and I had a nice
office,

02:10:14.319 --> 02:10:19.857
it was, my library was right next door
and the elevator right nearby

02:10:19.890 --> 02:10:26.177
straight down to do although it was
was not as busy as now of course but

02:10:26.210 --> 02:10:30.057
it was still difficult in trying to
get in to do the rehearsals because

02:10:30.090 --> 02:10:35.177
everybody wanted to use Gammage
Auditorium and and we had to keep fighting

02:10:35.210 --> 02:10:39.286
for our place and wait a minute. This
is built also for our performing

02:10:39.319 --> 02:10:43.357
groups, you know that we want this to
be available to us and it got to

02:10:43.390 --> 02:10:46.786
where it was only available at first,
it was available for two rehearsals

02:10:46.819 --> 02:10:51.767
, the last two rehearsals, which was
nice. We get used to get away from

02:10:51.800 --> 02:10:57.866
the rehearsal room Closeness and get
into the large concert. All we have

02:10:57.899 --> 02:11:02.027
to learn to project your sounds so
that it would go out to the audience

02:11:02.060 --> 02:11:07.217
and balance problems and things like
that. And but it got to the point

02:11:07.250 --> 02:11:11.156
that we got busier because the Oregon
was in there and the pipe organ made

02:11:11.189 --> 02:11:16.357
majors, I had to have a place to
practice and just cut off time because

02:11:16.390 --> 02:11:22.217
our rehearsal was usually 12 30 to 2
30 and uh it's cut off a couple of

02:11:22.250 --> 02:11:27.366
hours of practice time that they can
get with the pipe organ on stage. And

02:11:27.399 --> 02:11:31.097
so we only got one time and which made
it rather difficult. So you

02:11:31.130 --> 02:11:36.807
rehearsed like mad that afternoon
tired the concert was coming up that

02:11:36.840 --> 02:11:40.756
night. And so because we had to leave
our set up there and but it was

02:11:40.789 --> 02:11:46.727
still nice, it was such a glorious
sound to be able to have

02:11:46.760 --> 02:11:53.267
this first, a beautiful sight of
looking at it from the stage at the rose

02:11:53.300 --> 02:11:55.527
balconies

02:11:55.560 --> 02:12:00.857
and then secondly to to hear this
beautiful sound that would come back at

02:12:00.890 --> 02:12:06.246
you whenever you play, it was so warm
and so uh melded, you know what I

02:12:06.279 --> 02:12:11.866
mean? It just brought together
everything that you did were the sounds in

02:12:11.899 --> 02:12:16.717
the practice room were rather sharp
and delineated and defined.

02:12:16.750 --> 02:12:20.437
It's like I used to say to my students
when we were playing, I said, you

02:12:20.470 --> 02:12:26.137
know, one thing about playing an
orchestral uh situation is it, we want to

02:12:26.170 --> 02:12:31.487
have a good mixture of the sounds
melding of sounds. I said the way I like

02:12:31.520 --> 02:12:38.046
to to talk about it is like when I eat
cake, I like to eat cake, I don't

02:12:38.079 --> 02:12:43.496
want to say, oh that's flower, isn't
it? Oh and there's this piece of

02:12:43.529 --> 02:12:49.147
strawberry who's in there? And you
know what I mean? I want to taste cake

02:12:49.180 --> 02:12:52.727
and I think that's why I want to hear
music, I want to hear a good blend,

02:12:52.760 --> 02:12:59.177
I want to hear a quality that you
know, that expands and contracts and you

02:12:59.210 --> 02:13:01.916
get a good

02:13:01.949 --> 02:13:06.477
mixture and and we have to strive for
that. You know, you may have a solo

02:13:06.510 --> 02:13:10.416
, but wait a minute, let's be careful,
it's not solo to the point that you

02:13:10.449 --> 02:13:15.616
are a soloist in here, it's a solo
part in that mixture and it's like it's

02:13:15.649 --> 02:13:20.006
that one strawberry, it's sticking out
of the cake, maybe shits, it's

02:13:20.039 --> 02:13:25.456
obvious, but not, you know, it's not,
it's not supposed to be foremost and

02:13:25.489 --> 02:13:30.717
we got that in Gammage oh it just came
back like just one big wave of, of

02:13:30.750 --> 02:13:37.536
sound and, and I think that did more
for the growth of my program. I can

02:13:37.569 --> 02:13:44.916
assure you that was first years from
19, um 65

02:13:44.949 --> 02:13:52.347
on the growth was it was growing but,
but boy, when Gammage opened, I

02:13:52.380 --> 02:13:57.767
don't know how the message got out,
but boy the people just flocked in and

02:13:57.800 --> 02:14:01.677
it had more to do with the growing of
the program. All of a sudden I had

02:14:01.710 --> 02:14:07.036
three orchestras and I had to chamber
orchestras, you know, and a string

02:14:07.069 --> 02:14:10.937
orchestra and all that and sometimes
not duplicating people either. You

02:14:10.970 --> 02:14:15.517
know, the people, I had the horses, I
could just have a good good time

02:14:15.550 --> 02:14:19.357
that I imagine you had more people
come to hear the concerts also very

02:14:19.390 --> 02:14:24.607
much I should say we would have a nice

02:14:24.640 --> 02:14:29.256
group of, of audience in the emu in
the ballroom, but everything's on the

02:14:29.289 --> 02:14:33.706
same floor and after the second or
third row you just might as well be

02:14:33.739 --> 02:14:37.217
somewhere else just because all you
can do is here, you couldn't see, you

02:14:37.250 --> 02:14:40.036
couldn't see anything once in a while,
somebody would see somebody said

02:14:40.069 --> 02:14:43.866
stand up and say who played that, you
know, who did that and all that. So

02:14:43.899 --> 02:14:48.857
it was, it was nice that we had a
place to play but it was not ideal, but

02:14:48.890 --> 02:14:52.897
Gammage great

02:14:52.930 --> 02:14:58.277
and the audience could come and enjoy
it. That's right. And it, you know,

02:14:58.310 --> 02:15:05.666
at first I imagine we Had maybe six,
people. But it got at times well for

02:15:05.699 --> 02:15:09.326
the, some of the programs we would
have full houses. But most of the

02:15:09.359 --> 02:15:12.866
programs, the downstairs would be
pretty well filled with a smattering in

02:15:12.899 --> 02:15:16.006
the grand tier.

02:15:16.039 --> 02:15:20.807
So it was, yes, it was a nice
experience. And the students would always,

02:15:20.840 --> 02:15:24.607
every time it was a nice experience.
Like a first experience like ah,

02:15:24.640 --> 02:15:29.107
isn't this beautiful?

02:15:29.140 --> 02:15:33.166
That was in the 60s. So you were here
during the 60s, there was somewhat

02:15:33.199 --> 02:15:37.177
unrest on campus during that time. You
mentioned Kennedy assassination.

02:15:37.210 --> 02:15:41.847
But were you here for some of the
other war protests and things like it

02:15:41.880 --> 02:15:48.706
didn't, it didn't manifest anything
into my own program? No, it did not. I

02:15:48.739 --> 02:15:55.437
was aware of him and and we knew what
was going on, but and nothing

02:15:55.470 --> 02:16:02.456
happened in my orchestra that showed
any of that. I don't know whether

02:16:02.489 --> 02:16:07.046
some of the people that were involved
in that were in the orchestra and I

02:16:07.079 --> 02:16:10.987
wouldn't even know about it. You know,
when they didn't try to do anything

02:16:11.020 --> 02:16:18.597
in the class to gain a podium, so to
speak.

02:16:18.630 --> 02:16:21.887
What about some other highlights of
your career here at the issue? Are

02:16:21.920 --> 02:16:25.996
there other things that stand out in
your mind? Well, as a result of the

02:16:26.029 --> 02:16:29.987
growth of the program

02:16:30.020 --> 02:16:33.606
And incidentally, I guess I should say
something about the growth of the

02:16:33.639 --> 02:16:37.696
it was

02:16:37.729 --> 02:16:43.096
it was a monster of my own making, I
think when I think about it because

02:16:43.129 --> 02:16:50.227
you know when you produce a program
that's successful and I use that not

02:16:50.260 --> 02:16:53.577
to flatter myself, I mean it was
successful in the fact that it was

02:16:53.610 --> 02:16:58.926
growing, the student level was better,
proficiency level was better and

02:16:58.959 --> 02:17:03.446
therefore the kind of literature we
could play was better. And so that

02:17:03.479 --> 02:17:07.206
would attract, but then you would also
have to go out and try to and try

02:17:07.239 --> 02:17:10.087
to recruit because you want to have
balance to, I mean I don't want an

02:17:10.120 --> 02:17:15.766
orchestra of violins and so I I need
all the other instruments too. And so

02:17:15.799 --> 02:17:21.807
I'd have to recruit and you know, if
you produce an orchestra of 75 85 90

02:17:21.840 --> 02:17:26.426
100 then you start doing some nice
music, the department chairman and the

02:17:26.459 --> 02:17:32.686
school, the dean and they expect that
every year and you think oh so

02:17:32.719 --> 02:17:35.997
they're gonna graduate in a couple of
years, I need to find a replacement

02:17:36.030 --> 02:17:40.196
for this first bassoon or this first
trumpet who's playing in there on my

02:17:40.229 --> 02:17:46.116
timpanist er et cetera. And so you
couldn't just sit back and say whoa ho

02:17:46.149 --> 02:17:51.967
ho were a s you now and people start
knocking on my door. Oh sure a few

02:17:52.000 --> 02:17:57.967
would, but most of the people are
either too bashful or you're afraid to

02:17:58.000 --> 02:18:00.436
come in like that, they don't know if
that's the way you approach it, so

02:18:00.469 --> 02:18:07.487
that means you go out. So that means
either I go to lots of concerts and I

02:18:07.520 --> 02:18:10.727
decided I'd sure like to go after that
person and that one and that one

02:18:10.760 --> 02:18:15.046
and, and try to recruit like mad as
our other schools now that are coming

02:18:15.079 --> 02:18:19.637
here or I go to a different all states
in various parts of the country,

02:18:19.670 --> 02:18:27.670
usually the midwest or the west. And,
and just sort of

02:18:28.540 --> 02:18:34.737
go around to the all state rehearsals
and say boy that I like that third

02:18:34.770 --> 02:18:39.477
stand outside player violence and find
out who that is. So that I would

02:18:39.510 --> 02:18:45.116
come home with a list of maybe 30
people that I would write letters to in

02:18:45.149 --> 02:18:47.827
care of the school. I wouldn't know
their addresses or anything like that.

02:18:47.860 --> 02:18:51.407
But I would just write it in care of
the orchestra director and hoped

02:18:51.440 --> 02:18:55.206
that he would be kind enough to pass
the letter on to the, to the students.

02:18:55.239 --> 02:19:00.036
You know, I would say I would state my
interest in them and our program.

02:19:00.069 --> 02:19:04.296
I would talk about our programs and
literature that they, so that I would

02:19:04.329 --> 02:19:09.776
be recruiting all the time. That's
what I meant by a monster of my own

02:19:09.809 --> 02:19:13.577
making. You have a big program.
They're expecting that every year, just

02:19:13.610 --> 02:19:20.067
like they do in football or, or in,
you know, anything else. And, and so

02:19:20.100 --> 02:19:25.676
it got bigger. But then I started
getting some people from Mexico and and

02:19:25.709 --> 02:19:31.516
some, maybe a person from Japan. So
then I started getting openings in in

02:19:31.549 --> 02:19:35.717
foreign countries as well as maybe one
of my graduates would be in Salem

02:19:35.750 --> 02:19:41.526
Oregon where they have a good
orchestra program or in Richardson texas

02:19:41.559 --> 02:19:46.227
would have a very fine string program.
And so I would be writing, so I'd

02:19:46.260 --> 02:19:51.946
be writing letters all the time. I
mean at least a dozen a day where all

02:19:51.979 --> 02:19:55.887
individuals because, and I would do it
myself. I didn't have a secretary.

02:19:55.920 --> 02:20:03.227
And so Usually I could maybe hope for
5-10% of those people that that

02:20:03.260 --> 02:20:07.077
would want to come to the program.

02:20:07.110 --> 02:20:12.647
A. S. U. Was still growing. Didn't
have the reputation yet. Our program

02:20:12.680 --> 02:20:18.876
did luckily. I mean we were giving
concerts with famous artists.

02:20:18.909 --> 02:20:24.766
We're doing it. We did it when I was
there uh, utilizing not only the

02:20:24.799 --> 02:20:30.337
faculty as soloists with the
orchestra, but also Gammage was good enough

02:20:30.370 --> 02:20:37.776
to Gammage personnel good enough to
higher

02:20:37.809 --> 02:20:42.577
uh professional solos to come in as
solos with the orchestra program. That

02:20:42.610 --> 02:20:46.876
wouldn't cost me anything. They would
pay the fee for the solos.

02:20:46.909 --> 02:20:51.727
So we were getting lots of recognition
and we were a lot of, all our

02:20:51.760 --> 02:20:54.557
programs were recorded and somehow or
other, some of the programs would

02:20:54.590 --> 02:20:59.467
get out. And uh, we were looked upon
what I saw in a couple of

02:20:59.500 --> 02:21:03.077
publications where they were thinking,
we were like maybe the fourth or

02:21:03.110 --> 02:21:07.467
fifth in the country. And some of the
solos would go back and say, oh

02:21:07.500 --> 02:21:09.967
that's the orchestra to get with. I
mean if you want to get into a

02:21:10.000 --> 02:21:14.926
university orchestra to be solos to
get with with the A. S. U orchestra,

02:21:14.959 --> 02:21:18.376
well that made me feel good. So that
helped. Well, then they start hitting

02:21:18.409 --> 02:21:21.987
some of the foreign countries. So I
was getting people from Costa rica,

02:21:22.020 --> 02:21:27.407
quite a few good instrumentals from
Costa rica, Mexico, from Japan and,

02:21:27.440 --> 02:21:32.657
and then gradually, and if you go look
now he sees many, many orientals in

02:21:32.690 --> 02:21:38.057
the present orchestral program and
many from different countries. The only

02:21:38.090 --> 02:21:43.376
problem that I would run across was
that

02:21:43.409 --> 02:21:48.516
I would say maybe half would have
great difficulty in passing what is

02:21:48.549 --> 02:21:55.497
called the Tofel exam where the
english speaking and understanding program

02:21:55.530 --> 02:22:02.387
, they had to pass this total exam.
And I'm fortunate to say, I mean it's

02:22:02.420 --> 02:22:05.696
unfortunate that I have to say that
some of the people who are very, very

02:22:05.729 --> 02:22:11.577
good. I had one young man from, from
Japan who was in the Tokyo Symphony

02:22:11.610 --> 02:22:16.257
Orchestra who couldn't get into a
issue because he couldn't pass the toefl

02:22:16.290 --> 02:22:22.497
exam. And so he spent six or 7 years
here. I mean he played in the

02:22:22.530 --> 02:22:30.126
orchestra uh studied with me, not, you
know, I wasn't naturally a person

02:22:30.159 --> 02:22:34.067
of that caliber didn't have to study
with me. I mean we sort of helped

02:22:34.100 --> 02:22:39.227
each other and I mean I would
introduce the western way of playing that.

02:22:39.260 --> 02:22:43.587
And while he still had sort of a a
different concept of how it's to be

02:22:43.620 --> 02:22:49.366
played. And, but if they didn't pass
the total exam, they couldn't pursue

02:22:49.399 --> 02:22:55.657
a degree program. And but there are a
lot of foreigners in our, in our

02:22:55.690 --> 02:23:01.346
arts programs now. Performing arts as
a result of of those days where it

02:23:01.379 --> 02:23:07.737
just finally got over, we went into
Mexico and would give concerts. We one

02:23:07.770 --> 02:23:11.087
time we were a couple of times we went
and where the mexican rotary

02:23:11.120 --> 02:23:19.120
invited us to come down for the
program, the milk program where they,

02:23:19.399 --> 02:23:22.807
you know, raised money like mad so
they could buy milk or to, to give to

02:23:22.840 --> 02:23:27.856
the poor sections. And we did that
many times. They would pay all our

02:23:27.889 --> 02:23:34.366
expenses to go down there and give
concerts, stay 23 days, give um, maybe

02:23:34.399 --> 02:23:39.567
some programs within their school
system. And

02:23:39.600 --> 02:23:45.147
as a, as a result of that we got some
the notoriety that way. And some of

02:23:45.180 --> 02:23:48.667
the students would come up there,

02:23:48.700 --> 02:23:55.727
pursue their educational program. Um
talk a little bit about how the music

02:23:55.760 --> 02:24:00.946
department overall changed over those
years too. Well when I first came to

02:24:00.979 --> 02:24:06.936
a sc, it was a very small program, a
small number in the faculty, very

02:24:06.969 --> 02:24:12.997
good faculty though, very good. Uh,
people are good piano uh teachers,

02:24:13.030 --> 02:24:18.536
excellent vocal and the theory program
was was very high, but it was small

02:24:18.569 --> 02:24:22.106
and I don't know if it was, I think
the gentleman who was ahead of the

02:24:22.139 --> 02:24:28.257
program then was a nice, nice person.
He just,

02:24:28.290 --> 02:24:31.696
he said, well, you know that we're
here. So we wait for them to show up.

02:24:31.729 --> 02:24:38.956
Maybe no effort made to try to sell
the program. And so it's, that in

02:24:38.989 --> 02:24:44.266
itself kept my program is small too,
you know, because people don't just

02:24:44.299 --> 02:24:47.977
come for the violin, They come for all
the rest too. But we had good

02:24:48.010 --> 02:24:54.057
teachers and uh, and they were all
very good friends. That was a nice

02:24:54.090 --> 02:24:59.366
thing about it. We all got along. No,
um, you know, talking behind your

02:24:59.399 --> 02:25:05.217
back or clicks or anything like that.
Gradually when we've got people who

02:25:05.250 --> 02:25:11.456
are more ambitious in the
administration, part of the music, we started

02:25:11.489 --> 02:25:17.366
getting some recruiting efforts
underway where they made a real concerted

02:25:17.399 --> 02:25:22.657
effort to go out and become known,
introduce yourself, you know, appear,

02:25:22.690 --> 02:25:26.167
let them know you're interested in
them. That kind of an attitude and

02:25:26.200 --> 02:25:29.897
approach. And that helped our program.
Then we started getting more

02:25:29.930 --> 02:25:35.397
students which necessitated more
faculty. And as we got more faculty, we

02:25:35.430 --> 02:25:38.757
became more um,

02:25:38.790 --> 02:25:44.616
desirous of getting people with
national reputations so that we did start

02:25:44.649 --> 02:25:49.096
getting that, that level of person who
was able then to go out and and

02:25:49.129 --> 02:25:53.436
concert ties to in various parts of
the country. And of course it became

02:25:53.469 --> 02:25:57.196
known that they were that they are a
faculty member of the Arizona state

02:25:57.229 --> 02:26:00.446
and you want to study with that
person, you know, you would come here. So

02:26:00.479 --> 02:26:07.147
I'd say that between the beginning
years of 19, from 1957

02:26:07.180 --> 02:26:11.946
until the Gammage years, that was
really the only way we had to recruit. I

02:26:11.979 --> 02:26:18.077
mean now we had the aura and there's a
shine of damage to then. It wasn't

02:26:18.110 --> 02:26:21.747
so hard, you know, everybody wanted to
come and it really helped the

02:26:21.780 --> 02:26:29.196
graduate program where before we, we
were strictly undergraduate and we

02:26:29.229 --> 02:26:34.917
had a masters, a masters all inclusive
and um, but now we were able to get

02:26:34.950 --> 02:26:42.057
into a real uh nitty gritty. We are
part of the of the music world and

02:26:42.090 --> 02:26:47.747
have definitive rated places that you
can major in. So it did grow. And I

02:26:47.780 --> 02:26:53.846
would say that By the time I left in
1989

02:26:53.879 --> 02:27:00.247
I had a big faculty of 70 and probably
a 120

02:27:00.280 --> 02:27:07.507
530 graduate assistants. And uh and
lots of majors. I mean lots of music

02:27:07.540 --> 02:27:13.497
majors, Probably one of the large, one
of the large music programs in the

02:27:13.530 --> 02:27:17.757
country. How did the different
directors? How many different directors did

02:27:17.790 --> 02:27:21.247
you work under for the department

02:27:21.280 --> 02:27:27.016
when I came in the last year of grand
fletcher. And then dr wendell writer

02:27:27.049 --> 02:27:34.276
, it was then, I can't tell you the
number of years, but quite a few years

02:27:34.309 --> 02:27:40.046
it grew. He he was a very nice person,
not,

02:27:40.079 --> 02:27:45.346
you know, not exuberant in his, in his
way. He was just very careful,

02:27:45.379 --> 02:27:53.147
pleasant, very knowledgeable, highly
thought of person.

02:27:53.180 --> 02:27:58.747
And then when he had to get out of the
program because of Alzheimer's

02:27:58.780 --> 02:28:06.206
uh, Dr english took over as an interim
department chair, who's a music

02:28:06.239 --> 02:28:11.176
education primarily, but it also
directed or orchestras in evanston

02:28:11.209 --> 02:28:15.036
Illinois before he came here.

02:28:15.069 --> 02:28:23.069
And then Dr Andy broke mama and dr
brian's mom who were very, very strong

02:28:24.030 --> 02:28:29.977
administrators. Those people, all
budgets were increasing, Our faculty

02:28:30.010 --> 02:28:36.317
numbers were getting, the higher the
quality of faculty was was excellent

02:28:36.350 --> 02:28:42.036
. I mean, we're getting nationally
known people as opposed to just

02:28:42.069 --> 02:28:45.296
somebody like Eugene Lombardy, where
would knock on his front door to say

02:28:45.329 --> 02:28:48.346
, would you like to join the faculty?
You know, it wasn't anything like

02:28:48.379 --> 02:28:54.507
that. And so that now with our
director of the School of Music where it's

02:28:54.540 --> 02:29:00.016
uh you know, it's set up like any
large conservatory would be where they

02:29:00.049 --> 02:29:04.487
have a director and assistant director
and uh and people who are chairs of

02:29:04.520 --> 02:29:11.817
their various the disciplines within
the music, it's very, very well

02:29:11.850 --> 02:29:15.417
structured, you know what I mean? And
you have something to sell you

02:29:15.450 --> 02:29:20.796
really do. So now that I'm sure
they're still recruiting, I know that Dr

02:29:20.829 --> 02:29:26.926
russell who took my place is still
recruiting like mad, but getting higher

02:29:26.959 --> 02:29:31.497
quality though, you know, you can, you
can be sure we always had a good

02:29:31.530 --> 02:29:34.987
scholarship program that was one thing
that they were and I don't know who

02:29:35.020 --> 02:29:40.987
I can, I can thank for that. But
somebody set it up so that the orchestra

02:29:41.020 --> 02:29:47.237
had a large number of scholarships.
Um,

02:29:47.270 --> 02:29:51.637
I think I had a total of 45
scholarships as one of the monastery by the

02:29:51.670 --> 02:29:54.036
time I left

02:29:54.069 --> 02:30:01.366
and they were, they included all
tuition, all the lesson fees plus out of

02:30:01.399 --> 02:30:07.167
state. And the beauty of it was that I
could break it up in components. I

02:30:07.200 --> 02:30:12.796
could have out of 45, I could make
that into 90 scholarships where I would

02:30:12.829 --> 02:30:18.786
give them only, um, say the out of
state tuition, but the in state tuition

02:30:18.819 --> 02:30:21.907
and the private lessons are still
available. So I could make that into

02:30:21.940 --> 02:30:25.596
another one. So I could break it up in
any way that I wanted and which

02:30:25.629 --> 02:30:30.026
made it real nice. And so we can get
some high class students in. Mm hmm.

02:30:30.059 --> 02:30:32.327
 Yeah.

02:30:32.360 --> 02:30:35.507
And what about the different college
presidents that you worked under? You

02:30:35.540 --> 02:30:39.526
have memories of different ones of
them being more supportive of music? Uh

02:30:39.559 --> 02:30:47.327
, dr Gammage was, was supportive of
music.

02:30:47.360 --> 02:30:51.186
I don't think he would have recognized
me at any time walking down the

02:30:51.219 --> 02:30:56.686
street. But yet we had times that we
were together after a concert and

02:30:56.719 --> 02:31:01.257
when we had the special soloist and he
would come up and introduce or

02:31:01.290 --> 02:31:04.606
bring him to my rehearsals. One thing
we're always blessed with visitors,

02:31:04.639 --> 02:31:09.247
high level visitors, they wanted to
show off to the side of the symphony

02:31:09.280 --> 02:31:14.016
orchestra that we have in our school
here and they would sit for a while

02:31:14.049 --> 02:31:20.956
in at our rehearsal. And um Gammage
obviously was supportive because he

02:31:20.989 --> 02:31:24.946
wanted to make sure that we had a good
sound in the hall and that the

02:31:24.979 --> 02:31:30.637
right people were hired for that. Um
We had some that were not, I mean

02:31:30.670 --> 02:31:34.096
they knew we existed, that's all. But
I don't know that we got a lot of

02:31:34.129 --> 02:31:38.766
support and I don't want to cast a
negative. I think the I think that

02:31:38.799 --> 02:31:43.727
probably the one that was the most
supportive was dr homer dorm, an

02:31:43.760 --> 02:31:48.296
absolutely delightful person, a music
lover. And I think I made a lot of

02:31:48.329 --> 02:31:53.977
points because his brother was a
composer and uh and I was able to perform

02:31:54.010 --> 02:31:59.467
some of that music for his brother.
And um and of course all the Durham

02:31:59.500 --> 02:32:05.106
family would come in mass to hear the
music that that was composed by one

02:32:05.139 --> 02:32:11.536
of the family. And he just dearly
loved music and was so supportive. And

02:32:11.569 --> 02:32:17.587
and when he tried to sell a S. U, the
arts always entered into it. Which

02:32:17.620 --> 02:32:20.717
was nice.

02:32:20.750 --> 02:32:25.026
How did your career progress then?
What other titles or did you take on as

02:32:25.059 --> 02:32:30.317
you, you were here for over 30 years,
32 years?

02:32:30.350 --> 02:32:35.866
Well, I um, I gradually progressed
into being the concert master of the

02:32:35.899 --> 02:32:42.956
phoenix symphony. I was with a
symphony until 1969. So I had a good 10

02:32:42.989 --> 02:32:46.487
years as the concert master. The
concert master always acts as the

02:32:46.520 --> 02:32:52.737
assistant conductor also. And so in
the late 60's I was conducting the

02:32:52.770 --> 02:32:58.786
phoenix symphony and all the out of
town concerts. The conductors,

02:32:58.819 --> 02:33:04.016
many of the conductors would take on
positions if they could be part time.

02:33:04.049 --> 02:33:06.596
In other words, they'd like to be the
conductor of the phoenix symphony,

02:33:06.629 --> 02:33:11.796
but also to be the conductor of the
Indianapolis. And so they're always

02:33:11.829 --> 02:33:15.446
jetting all over the country well. And
they didn't want to do out of town

02:33:15.479 --> 02:33:18.546
concerts. They don't want to go to
Prescott to give a concert and go to

02:33:18.579 --> 02:33:22.516
casa grande to give a concert
something like that. So that would be fall

02:33:22.549 --> 02:33:26.747
on me. And so I got a lot of
experience. I mean I grew a lot, I can assure

02:33:26.780 --> 02:33:31.817
you as a result of doing that, which
made my importance as far as the

02:33:31.850 --> 02:33:38.596
students were concerned much higher
because I was verse with working with

02:33:38.629 --> 02:33:44.227
a professional group for the phoenix
area. And as a result of that, it

02:33:44.260 --> 02:33:50.946
would also act as a recruiting tool.
And we would go to like I say,

02:33:50.979 --> 02:33:54.247
Prescott, Flagstaff

02:33:54.280 --> 02:34:01.366
Wickenburg, casa grande Tucson and
give concerts. Hello, I think was also

02:34:01.399 --> 02:34:06.846
another one. And so I got a lot of
exposure. And uh, and of course my

02:34:06.879 --> 02:34:12.147
program that was bigger. Well, when
the program started getting that large

02:34:12.180 --> 02:34:16.507
would entail to be having to learn the
scores, which is no easy matter

02:34:16.540 --> 02:34:20.846
sometimes it wouldn't be what I would
have done here today issue. And to

02:34:20.879 --> 02:34:25.936
go out and do these and recruiting and
all that. It finally got to the

02:34:25.969 --> 02:34:28.657
point where I had to make up my mind
was I going to go to the symphony

02:34:28.690 --> 02:34:33.487
route and we're gonna go to the A. S.
You're out and I couldn't do them

02:34:33.520 --> 02:34:38.536
both. Well. I became practical there
in my thinking. I figured there was

02:34:38.569 --> 02:34:43.876
no way that I was going to make Like
right now. What is it now? 30,000 a

02:34:43.909 --> 02:34:48.817
year. And that's after, I don't know
how many years when I was in new york

02:34:48.850 --> 02:34:52.837
stra that it was less than half that
for me for the concert master, which

02:34:52.870 --> 02:34:57.887
was the highest paid besides the
conductor. So I decided there's there

02:34:57.920 --> 02:35:02.907
isn't any future as far as my future
being in the symphony, staying there

02:35:02.940 --> 02:35:06.977
all full time for my family. I decided
on a S. You and of course I have

02:35:07.010 --> 02:35:13.046
not regretted it. But then I stayed on
as assistant conductor until I

02:35:13.079 --> 02:35:15.786
conducted the, what's called the
people's pops concerts. And it was the

02:35:15.819 --> 02:35:23.819
Phoenix Symphony one a month for 13
years. Always a new program. So that's

02:35:23.940 --> 02:35:28.007
my it was my association then had to
drop the symphony and I was strictly

02:35:28.040 --> 02:35:35.296
A. S. U. You were there when symphony
hall was built. Yes. Yes it was. I

02:35:35.329 --> 02:35:38.507
think I was there for the last

02:35:38.540 --> 02:35:45.046
eight or 9 years of my my conducting
the symphony there uh before I

02:35:45.079 --> 02:35:53.079
retired from from the People's Pops
concerts. Mm hmm.

02:35:53.739 --> 02:35:56.667
During all that time then did you have
to give up your own playing the

02:35:56.700 --> 02:36:00.866
violin and can't really be conducting
and playing too well. No, I kept on

02:36:00.899 --> 02:36:06.296
because I had a private class. I still
had about 20 violin students and

02:36:06.329 --> 02:36:09.546
they still might load with still more
than anybody else's. But then they

02:36:09.579 --> 02:36:14.397
figured, you know, somebody has to
teach these. And so I talked to violin

02:36:14.430 --> 02:36:20.387
and we had a quartet on campus called
the New Art String Quartet. And uh

02:36:20.420 --> 02:36:26.647
we made recordings, we played all over
the west Quartet was invited to

02:36:26.680 --> 02:36:31.887
Russia play and also to

02:36:31.920 --> 02:36:35.897
to Germany,

02:36:35.930 --> 02:36:42.786
we we played in L. A quite a bit. And
and and the faculty of we had to the

02:36:42.819 --> 02:36:46.796
two violins dr Spinoza and I were the
two violins and dr majors was a

02:36:46.829 --> 02:36:52.786
realist and tuck your assuming was the
cellist. And uh we had rehearsals

02:36:52.819 --> 02:36:57.446
twice a week of 2.5 hours each. So we
kept our playing up. We had to keep

02:36:57.479 --> 02:37:01.596
up a good standard there and we had
famous soloists come play with us. Yo

02:37:01.629 --> 02:37:07.987
yo ma that tell us that came dr
persnickety came with when we we recorded

02:37:08.020 --> 02:37:16.020
all four of his string quartets and
those are on disk and they, you know,

02:37:16.500 --> 02:37:21.096
brought in a lot of composers that
they were interested in that. So yes,

02:37:21.129 --> 02:37:25.467
we had to keep up our proficiency
level because if the students feel that

02:37:25.500 --> 02:37:30.106
well I can play better than he does.
You know why take from him, but they

02:37:30.139 --> 02:37:35.196
don't realize that maybe I have some
knowledge up here and that, that I

02:37:35.229 --> 02:37:38.067
may not be able to play it all right
away because I don't have the time

02:37:38.100 --> 02:37:43.016
you do to practice. But we had to keep
it up so we did, but we had to let

02:37:43.049 --> 02:37:49.046
certain things go as I did with the
symphony. Uh, the symphony, as I say,

02:37:49.079 --> 02:37:52.887
taught me a lot, did a lot for me and
helped me and and everything, you

02:37:52.920 --> 02:37:58.036
know, in achieving my rank, you know,
elevated to the full professor state

02:37:58.069 --> 02:38:04.516
status. And, and it all came about as
a result of what I had to offer and

02:38:04.549 --> 02:38:07.227
you know, you have to give credit
where credit is, do you know the people

02:38:07.260 --> 02:38:11.887
that gave that to me as I got it.

02:38:11.920 --> 02:38:15.456
Did your parents live long enough to
see you become successful in music

02:38:15.489 --> 02:38:22.147
and actually earn a living. My father
was finally became aware of the fact

02:38:22.180 --> 02:38:30.180
that I was gaining some notoriety and
in music. Um, all through my uh, my

02:38:31.110 --> 02:38:34.497
uh, well like my war years that I was
playing and that was keeping me out

02:38:34.530 --> 02:38:41.247
of combat, which he was forever
grateful. And the fact that I was able to

02:38:41.280 --> 02:38:46.296
to do a lot in music after I got out
of the service and after I got out of

02:38:46.329 --> 02:38:52.417
my schooling Unfortunately he died in
an automobile crash in 1956 so it

02:38:52.450 --> 02:38:57.887
wasn't too far. But my mother lived a
good 15 or so years more than that

02:38:57.920 --> 02:39:04.337
also. You know that came to the to the
valley view. A few of my concerts

02:39:04.370 --> 02:39:09.387
and all that proudest you could be and

02:39:09.420 --> 02:39:15.366
they were at least she was able to
realize that the choice was was a good

02:39:15.399 --> 02:39:21.426
one, you know, and as a result pleased
with the outcome. Mhm. You weren't

02:39:21.459 --> 02:39:25.247
starving. That's right. I wasn't
starving. You mentioned that you were

02:39:25.280 --> 02:39:28.057
able to progress to full professor.
When did that? How long did that take

02:39:28.090 --> 02:39:33.296
? Okay. Well it's it just took the
minimum in each rank. I think I was

02:39:33.329 --> 02:39:39.507
assistant for three years An associate
for five years and then dr bryan's

02:39:39.540 --> 02:39:44.647
room. I just felt that I should be a
full professor, you should have the

02:39:44.680 --> 02:39:48.147
stature to be able to carry on the
program that that he wanted to have

02:39:48.180 --> 02:39:56.180
here too. And so I was fortunate that
way too. Mhm.

02:39:58.520 --> 02:40:02.116
Let's see. Are there any other
particular things that happened here at A.

02:40:02.149 --> 02:40:05.237
S. U. That you wanted to be sure and
tell us about. I noticed you've

02:40:05.270 --> 02:40:11.567
written down some notes here. Um I
did. Well I always have been grateful

02:40:11.600 --> 02:40:18.876
for for what I could attribute the
success of the program. Uh I felt that

02:40:18.909 --> 02:40:23.596
for one thing we had a good faculty we
had we had what I call an artist

02:40:23.629 --> 02:40:28.477
faculty as far as the performance end
of it, composition. We had world

02:40:28.510 --> 02:40:32.676
renowned composers and residents

02:40:32.709 --> 02:40:37.227
in music education. We had, we got, we
had the best. So we had a really

02:40:37.260 --> 02:40:41.897
good product to sell. That in turn
brought in good students and then the

02:40:41.930 --> 02:40:47.657
good students produced fine
performances and defined performances somehow

02:40:47.690 --> 02:40:51.587
or other would get out to others which
would act as a recruiting tool and

02:40:51.620 --> 02:40:58.206
would bring other good students. And
uh, and it sort of got to where in my

02:40:58.239 --> 02:41:03.126
preaching moments into rehearsals or
whether it's during my times of

02:41:03.159 --> 02:41:08.977
advisement because I I was a graduate
advisor for

02:41:09.010 --> 02:41:15.126
20 Some years, I guess for the
master's program in instrumental music. I

02:41:15.159 --> 02:41:19.456
would always say it's, you know,

02:41:19.489 --> 02:41:23.137
the thing that you should do or tell
your students and I would tell my

02:41:23.170 --> 02:41:29.557
recruiting students that choose the
school that you, that you I think is a

02:41:29.590 --> 02:41:33.686
good school and then find out which of
those schools has a good music

02:41:33.719 --> 02:41:38.876
program because that's where you want
to go finding out about the faculty.

02:41:38.909 --> 02:41:44.637
And then when you come here, this is
the choice that you make, why be

02:41:44.670 --> 02:41:48.907
sure to to be serious about it all.
But remember, no matter where you go

02:41:48.940 --> 02:41:55.536
to school you as a string student or
something, the most success will come

02:41:55.569 --> 02:42:00.257
to the one who makes the best use of
the practice room if you don't spend

02:42:00.290 --> 02:42:04.096
the time in the practice room. I don't
care if you're studying under. It's

02:42:04.129 --> 02:42:09.247
oct Perlman or yo yo ma or whom if you
aren't a sponge, soaking it all in

02:42:09.280 --> 02:42:13.167
and then trying to produce it, you're
not going to amount to anything, it

02:42:13.200 --> 02:42:17.606
doesn't matter who you're exposed to.
So the years and hours and time

02:42:17.639 --> 02:42:21.266
spent in a practice room is the most
important. But make sure it's a

02:42:21.299 --> 02:42:24.987
school that you want to recognize,
school, school that you want that has

02:42:25.020 --> 02:42:31.696
the program and the faculty that you
want and then you put it to fruition

02:42:31.729 --> 02:42:34.266
and bring it to fruition.

02:42:34.299 --> 02:42:41.706
It's like good advice. Mhm. See how
have you talked a little bit about how

02:42:41.739 --> 02:42:44.467
a issue has changed. But we talked a
little more about how it changed from

02:42:44.500 --> 02:42:47.987
the time that you first came here,
first came to Arizona became aware of

02:42:48.020 --> 02:42:54.796
it until today when you retired. Well,
I, when I first came here, I looked

02:42:54.829 --> 02:43:01.237
upon a F. C. Down the road there and I
didn't have much contact with that

02:43:01.270 --> 02:43:06.147
. I would go to some of the concerts
but that would be about it. Um It was

02:43:06.180 --> 02:43:11.067
a nice school. It had,

02:43:11.100 --> 02:43:13.926
I thought a lot a lot of students, you
know, it was almost as big as

02:43:13.959 --> 02:43:20.936
phoenix union and uh and all that. But
I noticed that the growth that was

02:43:20.969 --> 02:43:25.717
occurring was was so encouraging. You
know, then from the time that I

02:43:25.750 --> 02:43:31.026
joined and became more interested in
it. But I noticed that the quality is

02:43:31.059 --> 02:43:37.106
getting better, getting higher, there
were more programs available, there

02:43:37.139 --> 02:43:42.807
was more attention being page to what
was being offered and who was doing

02:43:42.840 --> 02:43:46.977
the offering, you know and who are the
people that were imparting the

02:43:47.010 --> 02:43:53.067
information for the students to to
take on. Um and and I realized you know

02:43:53.100 --> 02:43:59.096
one day you wake up and you think well
gee how long have I been here? It's

02:43:59.129 --> 02:44:03.036
it's it's nice the way things are
growing because you realize all of a

02:44:03.069 --> 02:44:06.936
sudden that you're talking to somebody
from new york and saying who are

02:44:06.969 --> 02:44:10.397
you from A. S. U. Oh boy, I've heard a
lot of good things about A. S. U.

02:44:10.430 --> 02:44:14.616
And you wonder is that you know you
stay home so much that you don't

02:44:14.649 --> 02:44:17.977
realize that there may be other people
are hearing about you and we

02:44:18.010 --> 02:44:21.897
noticed the people that are applying
for positions, I mean the choices

02:44:21.930 --> 02:44:26.116
were fantastic and then the numbers
are applying were awesome, you know

02:44:26.149 --> 02:44:30.186
I'd be on the personnel committee, I
think I was on for about 21 years and

02:44:30.219 --> 02:44:36.497
all the the applications that would
have to go through and it was hard to

02:44:36.530 --> 02:44:40.606
decide. Very hard to decide and you
wonder these people of stature

02:44:40.639 --> 02:44:46.266
applying. It was wonderful and so that
growth was just so impressive. It

02:44:46.299 --> 02:44:49.237
just couldn't help but make you a
better teacher too because you knew that

02:44:49.270 --> 02:44:55.676
you you were among some elite and that
was thrilling. That was thrilling

02:44:55.709 --> 02:45:01.557
to see the growth the, and it was
ultra thrilling to see what Gammage

02:45:01.590 --> 02:45:06.206
Auditorium did. But I think the thing
that really did the most was when it

02:45:06.239 --> 02:45:10.956
became a university, when all of a
sudden when, when it was Arizona state

02:45:10.989 --> 02:45:16.337
University, uh, you'd have to remind
people about that and then they, oh

02:45:16.370 --> 02:45:19.997
yeah, that's right. And it was, it was
nice, you know, it was nice to the

02:45:20.030 --> 02:45:25.147
effect. There was an automatic
recruiting tool that you didn't have to do

02:45:25.180 --> 02:45:30.007
anything about it. All you gotta do is
mention it. And then that made for

02:45:30.040 --> 02:45:34.936
the desire for people who want to be
part of it as it is now as you can

02:45:34.969 --> 02:45:39.837
see the number of people that are on
our faculty and that they represent

02:45:39.870 --> 02:45:46.016
the best of the best and how fortunate
we are, I think we've had some

02:45:46.049 --> 02:45:50.467
unfortunate things happened as a
result of maybe lower pay scale or

02:45:50.500 --> 02:45:54.557
something like that. But some people
decide, well, you know, I have a

02:45:54.590 --> 02:45:57.876
choice of doing this and doing that.
It's nice to have a little money

02:45:57.909 --> 02:46:03.426
because I have to eat, take care of my
family. But it's nice to be part of

02:46:03.459 --> 02:46:08.487
this program. You know, that's just
going so wonderfully well, you know,

02:46:08.520 --> 02:46:14.346
it's just blossoming like man. And so
that's been exciting. And I've

02:46:14.379 --> 02:46:19.717
noticed that even after having been
out now since uh 89, you know what,

02:46:19.750 --> 02:46:23.157
what's happening on campus, you know,
it's just wonderful. It makes me

02:46:23.190 --> 02:46:28.286
feel that when I left it was that
5500, you don't need comparison. It

02:46:28.319 --> 02:46:36.319
really isn't. But it's just the idea
that the growth is just phenomenal

02:46:36.780 --> 02:46:44.780
to ask mind. I was going to ask you
David School are his name

02:46:45.299 --> 02:46:50.766
director of, of brady damage memorial
auditorium. He actually leave the

02:46:50.799 --> 02:46:56.967
faculty or did he stay on the
department of music? Well, at first, uh, he

02:46:57.000 --> 02:47:02.366
, he tried to keep both programs
going. I mean be head of the damage, but

02:47:02.399 --> 02:47:06.366
also to be the director of choirs.
Well, eventually he had to let go piece

02:47:06.399 --> 02:47:14.399
by piece. He had to let go of the,
the, um, the large town gown group.

02:47:15.399 --> 02:47:19.967
Coral union. Yes, somebody else. An
assistant had to take care of that and

02:47:20.000 --> 02:47:22.866
then gradually had to let go of the
concert choir. And finally he became a

02:47:22.899 --> 02:47:29.067
full fledged director of the Gammage
Auditorium. Yes, I know. What I was

02:47:29.100 --> 02:47:34.167
asking you about was the, the students
that you see coming into from high

02:47:34.200 --> 02:47:38.167
school. Um, and we keep hearing more
and more that schools are cutting

02:47:38.200 --> 02:47:43.366
back on music music programs and
certainly in elementary, but definitely

02:47:43.399 --> 02:47:47.667
in high school to how do you feel
about that? Well, of course, I'm sorry

02:47:47.700 --> 02:47:52.667
to see that. I'm sorry to see that the
program, the music program is being

02:47:52.700 --> 02:48:00.167
cuts in some completely and in some
shortened or made into smaller, but I

02:48:00.200 --> 02:48:04.067
think what's keeping it alive is the
private teacher. There are still

02:48:04.100 --> 02:48:11.167
enough young people who are desirous
of learning and may be introduced to

02:48:11.200 --> 02:48:18.167
the instruments or to music in their
elementary programs and they

02:48:18.200 --> 02:48:22.067
sometimes go to a high school that
doesn't have a good enough orchestra

02:48:22.100 --> 02:48:28.167
too to have them participate. There
are always some though, that, that's a

02:48:28.200 --> 02:48:32.766
regardless of the level I want to
play. And of course because of them, the

02:48:32.799 --> 02:48:36.567
program grows, you know, when you have
good players, they be getting good

02:48:36.600 --> 02:48:43.967
players. And, but I really, I've
thought about this a lot, a lot too. I

02:48:44.000 --> 02:48:47.667
really think it's being kept alive by
the private teacher. There are

02:48:47.700 --> 02:48:52.467
enough people taking private lessons
and our community community is big

02:48:52.500 --> 02:48:59.567
enough that there are, the percentage
is amazing how many people there are.

02:48:59.600 --> 02:49:05.366
I judge a lot of competitions still
where individuals come and audition

02:49:05.399 --> 02:49:11.866
for either replacement or for college
scholarship or for state rank and

02:49:11.899 --> 02:49:16.866
all that. It's amazing what's going on
and come from schools that maybe

02:49:16.899 --> 02:49:20.266
their private schools, they don't even
have a program and here they are.

02:49:20.299 --> 02:49:26.467
They're just going at its on
individuals participating in youth orchestra

02:49:26.500 --> 02:49:31.266
and things like that. But that's it.
You see the community orchestras

02:49:31.299 --> 02:49:35.766
playing a big part of tremendous and
we're very fortunate that our area

02:49:35.799 --> 02:49:39.967
has a number of community orchestras
that it has the Tempe symphony

02:49:40.000 --> 02:49:43.366
orchestras. I don't know if you've
heard them or seen them, but it's huge.

02:49:43.399 --> 02:49:50.967
It's 100 and 2800 and 25 people every
year. And the, the mesa orchestra

02:49:51.000 --> 02:49:57.067
is getting better all the time. The
san Carlos, which is the Chandler

02:49:57.100 --> 02:50:02.266
orchestra, Chandler Gilbert is doing
very well. It's not quite the Mesa

02:50:02.299 --> 02:50:06.067
level, but it's doing very, very well.
Scottsdale has had an orchestra for

02:50:06.100 --> 02:50:12.766
quite a while, not big, you know, but
it has an offering. I was conductor

02:50:12.799 --> 02:50:18.866
of the Sun City Symphony Orchestra for
six years. And the only reason I

02:50:18.899 --> 02:50:22.567
quit conducting there is because I was
getting tired of the, of the

02:50:22.600 --> 02:50:26.366
freeway problem at the time, there was
always closure and I'd have to

02:50:26.399 --> 02:50:30.866
start out at 4 30 in order to make
under 7 30 rehearsal because I was

02:50:30.899 --> 02:50:34.967
always being held up in traffic for
some reason or other. And, but they

02:50:35.000 --> 02:50:39.266
have a big growing program. It's not
called the Sun City anymore. It's the

02:50:39.299 --> 02:50:42.967
West Valley when I had it, it was all
strictly, you had to be a Sun City

02:50:43.000 --> 02:50:47.766
in to be a part of it. And uh, and the
gentleman took over after me and

02:50:47.799 --> 02:50:51.067
decided that he wanted to have a, an
orchestra competition with the

02:50:51.100 --> 02:50:56.167
phoenix symphony. And, and so
consequently it's not son sitting. And other

02:50:56.200 --> 02:51:00.567
than the fact that they rehearsed on
Sin City grounds, that kind of thing.

02:51:00.600 --> 02:51:05.266
But there are lots of opportunities to
play. I mean there are extra that

02:51:05.299 --> 02:51:09.067
I didn't even know about. I know
Glendale has one but I haven't heard, I

02:51:09.100 --> 02:51:11.467
haven't been able to go to any concert
because I haven't, they don't

02:51:11.500 --> 02:51:14.866
advertise themselves. But when you
think you have all this opportunity in

02:51:14.899 --> 02:51:21.067
Tempe and Mesa and Scottsdale and
Chandler Chandler Gilbert, uh, plus

02:51:21.100 --> 02:51:24.266
having youth orchestras that you can
belong to all over the valley,

02:51:24.299 --> 02:51:27.967
tremendous opportunities. I'm going to
ask you about the youth because you

02:51:28.000 --> 02:51:31.366
talked about starting the youth
orchestra with the phoenix symphony if the

02:51:31.399 --> 02:51:36.766
young people are continuing to be
involved. Yes, they certainly they are.

02:51:36.799 --> 02:51:44.167
And Mesa has a, a youth group to in
fact, it only goes to the first year

02:51:44.200 --> 02:51:47.766
of high school. I think they don't
take anybody any higher than that. But

02:51:47.799 --> 02:51:53.266
as Maybe seven or 8 little satellite
orchestras that come out of this of

02:51:53.299 --> 02:51:56.967
this group. Of course Mace has a
tremendous string program, Probably the

02:51:57.000 --> 02:52:03.967
best in in uh, area. Mm hmm. Um, what
advice do you give to young people

02:52:04.000 --> 02:52:07.667
that are considering what to do with
their lives. And you talked about

02:52:07.700 --> 02:52:10.167
part of deciding what school to go to.
But what if you're just trying to

02:52:10.200 --> 02:52:14.866
decide in music music or or if music
would be either thing or maybe

02:52:14.899 --> 02:52:21.766
something else? Well, it's amazing how
many of the very fine

02:52:21.799 --> 02:52:29.799
instrumentalists, our students that
are maybe majoring in. Uh, well, I had

02:52:30.700 --> 02:52:34.967
an architecture major as my concert
master in my A. S. U. Orchestra, there

02:52:35.000 --> 02:52:39.766
wasn't a music major in a school that
was as good as this girl it was. And

02:52:39.799 --> 02:52:44.667
and there was another one that was a
an engineer, an engineering major. A

02:52:44.700 --> 02:52:50.967
girl also Concert master, nobody could
touch her and she was so good. So a

02:52:51.000 --> 02:52:54.567
person like that, how can you advise?
I can say we'll get out of

02:52:54.600 --> 02:53:00.167
engineering. I mean go the route of
the violinist when you auditioned for

02:53:00.200 --> 02:53:04.967
an orchestra position And you get
there and there are 200 in line to get

02:53:05.000 --> 02:53:09.366
in for one position, you know, or a
trumpet player, you know that were

02:53:09.399 --> 02:53:12.667
they flute player in the same way. And
I just have so many people that

02:53:12.700 --> 02:53:16.567
apply. So you have to be honest to
him, he said about you know, you want

02:53:16.600 --> 02:53:21.366
to be careful. I always say yeah if
you want to major in music and you're

02:53:21.399 --> 02:53:26.467
just such a die hard that you will
only major in music

02:53:26.500 --> 02:53:33.266
as much as I hate to say it, don't go
in as a performance major only get

02:53:33.299 --> 02:53:39.467
your teaching credential to, you may
never teach, you may never need to

02:53:39.500 --> 02:53:44.866
you see, but the time may come when
that will be the only outlet for a

02:53:44.899 --> 02:53:52.167
music person is to teach music. You
can chill, you can still do like I did

02:53:52.200 --> 02:53:58.667
I have my degree is in music education
slash performance

02:53:58.700 --> 02:54:02.967
and uh you know it's it's more music
education than in his performance. I

02:54:03.000 --> 02:54:08.967
mean more hours spent in school so
that it's it's the route that I chose.

02:54:09.000 --> 02:54:13.067
I've always been fortunate in being in
a city where there was a good

02:54:13.100 --> 02:54:16.967
school for me to teach in and a good
orchestra for me to play in at the

02:54:17.000 --> 02:54:22.366
same time. Now the people in school
see that I'm playing in this orchestra.

02:54:22.399 --> 02:54:25.467
 So there

02:54:25.500 --> 02:54:29.366
they're thinking of me is higher than
it would be if I wasn't involved.

02:54:29.399 --> 02:54:32.167
And I said, well, how come you're not
playing in the symphony? I see, well

02:54:32.200 --> 02:54:36.467
, I am playing in the symphony and
then the symphony people know about

02:54:36.500 --> 02:54:40.866
your work in the schools and so it
works both ways. So to me, it's the

02:54:40.899 --> 02:54:47.766
best of all worlds to be a music major
music education plus performance.

02:54:47.799 --> 02:54:50.866
Nobody says it's just because you're a
music education that you shouldn't

02:54:50.899 --> 02:54:54.766
practice, that you shouldn't try to
make yourself be the best violinist,

02:54:54.799 --> 02:54:58.766
clarinetist trumpeter in the world.
Because all it is is how many hours

02:54:58.799 --> 02:55:03.467
you spend in the practice room
remember? And as a result, that's what

02:55:03.500 --> 02:55:09.766
makes you good. But uh be be be smart,
be wise about how you approach it.

02:55:09.799 --> 02:55:13.467
And the reason I say that is because
there were so many cases where a

02:55:13.500 --> 02:55:16.967
person was a Diehard said, nope, I'm
not going to teach in schools. I'm

02:55:17.000 --> 02:55:20.766
going to be performing major. That's
fine. Five years later they come back

02:55:20.799 --> 02:55:24.467
, Oh, it's nice to see you. What are
you here because I'm here to get my

02:55:24.500 --> 02:55:31.567
teaching credential See you. You know,
you might as well take it now while

02:55:31.600 --> 02:55:35.467
you have no responsibility as far as
family. Uh, and maybe you're on

02:55:35.500 --> 02:55:40.167
scholarship and you can achieve all
this at at little cost to you, so to

02:55:40.200 --> 02:55:44.967
speak. And it doesn't hurt a family or
anything like that. And then you

02:55:45.000 --> 02:55:49.167
have that credential and you can, you
may have to upgrade it every once in

02:55:49.200 --> 02:55:55.467
a while by taking a course and doing
some some teaching. But you have it

02:55:55.500 --> 02:56:00.167
and it's it's insurance. You know,
it's nice to have insurance.

02:56:00.200 --> 02:56:03.067
Yes.

02:56:03.100 --> 02:56:06.467
Okay. And I think I'm not wrapped up
unless there was anything you wanted

02:56:06.500 --> 02:56:10.866
to tell us just to wrap up. No, I've
enjoyed this session very much. It

02:56:10.899 --> 02:56:16.067
brought back a lot of memories. Um, I

02:56:16.100 --> 02:56:20.766
I really feel like there were times
when people were trying to advise me

02:56:20.799 --> 02:56:26.467
out of out of music. I don't mean my
my family, my folks. I mean people

02:56:26.500 --> 02:56:31.266
who would think that I was wasting my
time and teaching, you know that I

02:56:31.299 --> 02:56:34.067
should be performing and things like
that and I thank them for the

02:56:34.100 --> 02:56:40.366
compliment and all that. But I knew
what I wanted and as a result, enjoyed

02:56:40.399 --> 02:56:42.766
a nice life

02:56:42.799 --> 02:56:49.467
combination. Thank you. Thank you very
much.

02:56:49.500 --> 02:56:51.766
You

02:56:51.799 --> 02:56:56.667
sound like you got the best of both
worlds. Well I did. Yes, fortunate,

02:56:56.700 --> 02:56:58.700
veryfortunate