Concertmaster

Like a Baroque concerto, my weekly lesson ritual has three movements. The first begins with the slow walk along his pretty sidewalk, abundant with lush tropical foliage. My teacher has a gardener’s heart and it shows. I knock, hearing him softly pad to the door in his signature slippers, opening it to reveal the peace inside. Entering this home is akin to a deep, soul cleansing breath.
 
The sliding back doors are open to the beach beyond, the Gulf breeze gently stirring the sheer living room curtains. The house always seems a comfortable temperature inside despite the tropical heat. The rooms are lit just enough, the antithesis of the jarring brightness of the Florida sun. His wife, an accomplished home chef, is busy in the kitchen. My late afternoon lesson time makes me the lucky, and often hungry, recipient of the mouth-watering aromas of her handiwork.
 
The decor is curated from their adventures around the globe. His musicianship has allowed them the gift of travel. Undeterred by their upscale address, the home is approachable, elegantly understated, and extremely personal – and wildly interesting to this impressionable teen. As a couple, their combined talents of painting, music and wood carving are both unique and symbiotic, and lovingly displayed throughout their home.
 
As I enter the office, the second movement of this weekly concerto picks up tempo. The lesson always starts with a repertoire piece from my memorized, yet limited, arsenal of personal favorites. He smiles and nods approvingly, gently requesting I learn another as his ears tire of my repeats. We then move on to what he hopes has been my practiced work. This doesn’t always go so well. As a busy teenager, I’m not always disciplined in my practice.
 
Yet being an impatient perfectionist, I want my violin to sound like his, and a frustration meltdown sometimes occurs. He smiles while offering a tissue, taking this behavior in stride. We sit as he patiently tells me a story from either his youth or his grandchildren, of which I’m a similar age. My angst now diffused, I’m able to continue. With my promises to be better the following week, he smiles again and with a teasing wink softly advises me “don’t just threaten me, do it.”
 
The weekly concerto plays its final movement as a decrescendo of activity. We pack up as he gently assures me I’m on the right track. Whatever frustration he may feel at my occasional lack of progress is rarely, if ever, shown. He’s a true gentleman and I know I am fortunate to have this pedigreed musician as my teacher and friend. I return to my parents’ car, the crunch of gravel as this last movement’s closing notes. I head home, resolute to practice more.
 
This is my weekly routine for six years. Not only is this man the orchestra teacher at my school, he’s a prominent musical figure in our community, but it wouldn’t be until later that I realized the depth of his credentials.
 
Trained at the Juilliard School under the auspices of the great musical masters of his day, my teacher was a symphony concertmaster and orchestra teacher in the north. Notwithstanding these impressive academics, his Jewish upbringing and teaching vocation were humble. Having relocated to the sunny south, his desire to bring classical music education to the area wasn’t without its difficulties. Also qualified to teach math, he gracefully and persistently battled a doubtful school superintendent, negotiating a win-win for the district by agreeing to teach math in exchange for the opportunity to start an orchestra program. The superintendent grudgingly agreed, clueless as to the gift the district had just been given.
 
I was a benefactor of this new extracurricular, excitedly starting sixth grade learning to play an instrument and type of music otherwise out of my reach. It was a serendipitous day when this new teacher approached my parents regarding the possibility of private lessons, having watched my enthusiasm unfold in class.
 
My parents worked incredibly hard to instill the gift of music in my siblings and me. It was a financial priority for them even through their lean years. Like other forms of education, the love of music was “something no one could ever take away from you.” My oldest brother was a flautist, my middle brother a drummer, and I, a violinist. We all cultivated an undying love for music in its many genres and can thank Mom and Dad for that, along with our patient instructors. Although two of us didn’t continue, the seeds of appreciation and need for music in our lives were sown early, firmly rooted and have flowered in abundance.
 
My husband and I officially met during our school years via classical music. He too had been studying privately with this teacher. We had unknowingly been living parallel lives with our weekly lessons from this wise old sage, yet my husband was much more disciplined, wanting to attend college for viola performance. Our fate as a couple began in a student string quartet later in high school.
 
When planning our wedding, our teacher was the first musician we asked to help celebrate our day. Without hesitation (or regard for his painful battle with shoulder bursitis) he agreed, his gift to us as former students. It was, and still is, one of our fondest memories from the ceremony. The pictures remind us of his wisdom, music, friendship, and legacy.
 
Our teacher’s quest for beauty and knowledge was insatiable, lasting well into his late nineties. When visiting our hometown, my husband and I would call on him, sitting and chatting in that same comfortable living room overlooking the Gulf. His wife, the absolute love of his life, had passed, yet the elderly gentleman pressed on, continuing to fill his days with his other loves of quartet playing, learning Hebrew, gardening, and violin making. With a fragile outward appearance, he had the amazing wit, fortitude and intellect of those much younger. He was a living history lesson on the importance of an active mind in one’s later years.
 
He played his unique life’s sonata until the age of ninety-eight. When we heard of his passing, my husband and I shed tears of both sadness and joy. Sad that our friend was gone from our sight. But joyful for his soulful reunion with his wife, along with the intense gratitude for having known, and been taught by such a master. His life, after all, had helped ours come full circle.
 
People are placed in our lives for many reasons that we cannot know at the time. This “music whisperer” taught far more than simply notes on a page. He was an example of a life well lived and what it took to get there. His patience, quiet persistence, priceless wisdom and friendship over the years has continued to be a gift that has certainly kept on giving. A love for music is only the beginning of the symphony he’s composed as his legacy. Attending my husband’s concerts is a continual reminder of the lovely man who started it all. His soul lives on in our hearts, and my husband and I have no doubt he’s returned to his appointed seat, making beautiful music as Concertmaster of the Symphony of the Afterlife.