I began playing violin in 3rd grade and piano in 8th grade. My paternal grandfather played violin in his youth. I found his violin in my grandparent's attic and begged for lessons. The Catholic school I went to had a music program. I also sang in the choir every day of the week at 6:30 AM Mass.
Later I began playing the player piano my father owned and taught myself to read the bass clef. I began playing the preludes and fugues of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. I begged for piano lessons and soon was learning rapidly.
I played in our high school orchestra, which did regular concerts and several musicals. I played in the
Orange County (California) Youth Symphony under John Koshack. He was an excellent educator who easily taught young musicians ensemble playing.
I entered the University of California at Irvine in fall 1974 to major in biological sciences. I played in the UCI Symphony as Principal 2nd Violin. Conductor Alvaro Cassuto, director of the Portuguese Radio Symphony, had left Portugal due to political trouble and took the spot at UCI. It was amazing playing under a world-class conductor. We performed the standard orchestral literature as well as several musicals. Xerox Company funded a professional-level production of My Fair Lady. I was able to play in the pit orchestra with musicians from the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
We performed a number of concerti with excellent soloists. Among them were the world's 2nd performance of Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera's Piano Concerto #2, written for and played by Hilde Sommer. After our concerts
we recorded the concerto for the first time. It is available on archive dot com.. Note the recording technical quality is not up to modern standards, and the small recording company didn't have Deutsche Grammophon's budget to edit and massage recordings. It is extremely modern and dissonant music that may not appeal to everybody, but I like it.
When I entered UCI I began teaching piano lessons to beginners my own teacher couldn't accomodate in his schedule. I made enough money to pay for my own piano and violin lessons, and then some. My first year in the UCI Symphony, a choral director pulled aside several of us players and put together a string orchestra and chorus to play Handel's Messiah in various churches at Christmas and Easter. I did this through my 4 years at UCI and made enough money to pay my tuition.
When I moved to San Francisco for graduate school I had no time for music, so I stopped. When I finished my training and moved to Phoenix in 1985 I bought and had restored a beautiful mahogany 1906 Steinway grand piano. I am its third owner. I play it occasionally. One must play the violin every day, so I no longer do so. I still have the violin brought by my great uncle with him in 1914 when my mother's family left Europe. He was about 7 years old at the time but had been taught to play violin by Gypsies in their town. I also have my paternal grandfather's violin, the one I found in his attic.
My favorite composer is still Bach. When I retire I will go back to piano. I don't know whether I will regain my former technique. When I stopped I was working on Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in d minor, Beethoven's 5th piano concerto, Liszt's Transcendental Etude No. 11, “Harmonies du Soir,” 1838 version, and Prokofieff's Toccata.
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