TOD
1958 - attending a pipe organ concert, resulting in a family move and several years of lessons.
1959 - the score of
Porgy and Bess (via seeing the film) and Gershwin's
Concerto in F via the List/Hanson recording on Mercury.
1960 - seeing
South Pacific staged by some amateur group (I'd seen the film the year before), and finally getting my hands on the original cast album after being tortured by a no-name supermarket album for a year.
1963 - missed the roadshow engagement, but the score of
West Side Story on the opening night of the film in Fort Lauderdale. Subsequently, discovering the world of "complete vocal scores" as listed on the back of vocal selections books. ("Wow, nine dollars, so it must be something interesting.")
1964 - entering the annual contest to play a concerto with the Fort Lauderdale Symphony -- playing the aforementioned
Concerto in F for the aforementioned Emerson Buckley -- and NOT winning, an excellent lesson in never trying such a foolhardy thing again.
1966 - being introduced to the Bernstein NY Phil recording of Mahler's
Second and the Ormandy
Carmina Burana, on reel-to-reel tape and through quality headphones...all in the same evening.
1966 - meeting and hearing Arthur Loesser when he came down to play in a joint concert with a chamber group I was accompanying, resulting in my attending the Cleveland Institute of Music.
1967 - the Szell performances of the Mahler
Sixth. Shortly thereafter, meeting James Levine (who had just played celesta in that) to tell him I wanted to play keyboard parts in his orchestra.
1971 - joining Levine and others on my first visit to California where he was to conduct at the Hollywood Bowl, resulting in my moving to LA a year later. That move, in turn, influenced my more or less walking away from music for some years -- stupid on the one hand, but I wouldn't trade those years. (Also not insignifcant - my first meal at Hamburger Hamlet on that first afternoon before that first concert.)
1975 - being taken for a sightseeing flight around LA on Christmas Eve day, igniting an obsession that wouldn't wind down until after several years of flying around on my own pilot's license.
1990 - a routine meeting of a coworker's new in-laws, who turned out to be the builders of this house.
2012 - finding my way here and meeting all of you -- not in the least BK and DR Elmore, who represent the worlds I would happily choose to inhabit for all time.....if only we had all time.
