The Day An Orchestra Changed My Life

And how I get to relive it 20 years later

Note: you can listen to all of the musical works mentioned below in this Spotify playlist.

Dad’s White Truck

When I teach workshops for new dads I start with a simple but effective icebreaker. I pass out two or three pipe cleaners of various colors to each participant and ask them to make something that represents their father. If they are going to build a new legacy it is important and natural to begin by looking back, whether the memories are positive or negative, plentiful or non-existent.

I use some pipe cleaners to fashion a model of the white Ford F-150 that my dad drove when I was young and share how I have mixed feelings about that truck. My dad had to travel a lot, selling windows to provide for his family, meaning his white truck often took him away from us. I missed him when he was gone. Sometimes, however, he would take my brothers and I on business trips with him in that white truck. We would bring along DVDs for epic films like Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and enjoy them together in his hotel. The white truck also featured in many great hunting adventures with Dad.

From the Woods to the Hall

One late November day when I was 14 years old, my brother Matthew and I loaded into the white truck and soon found ourselves in the woods, eyes peeled for whitetails. At 14 and 12, we were already well-trained in every part of harvesting and processing deer, thanks to our dad. Hunting was a way of life for a family like ours, feeding our souls through encounters with nature and providing healthy meat for the family table.

When I heard a shot in the direction of my dad’s stand, I remembered his classic line, “If you hear one shot, it’s me.” Sure enough, he soon came dragging a 7-point buck up the trail. I climbed down from my stand and we met up with Matthew on our way to get the truck. Why am I telling you this in an article about an orchestra? Well, because my dad got that deer just in time for us to rush home, change, and go see the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

The Pittsburgh Symphony

The PSO was performing in Swasey Chapel at Denison University, not far from our small country town of Utica, Ohio. We had gotten tickets through our youth orchestra—the Newark-Granville Youth Symphony—and we were excited to hear Sarah Chang play the Sibelius Violin Concerto. My mom and other siblings saved us some seats about seven rows from the stage and we slid in just in time. Matthew still had a hand warmer in his pocket. Dad’s white truck was definitely the only vehicle in the parking garage with a buck in its bed. I settled in and got excited for the concert.

The orchestra began with Dvořák’s Carnival Overture and my eyes grew big. I had never heard such a sound. The conductor was a young man named Daniel Meyer, the PSO’s Resident Conductor, and his energy was exceptional, not to mention his hair. While I did not know their names until later, I can still remember seeing Tim Adams on the timpani, Anne Martindale Williams and David Premo in the front stand of cellos, and Jeremy Black and Louis Lev among the violins. As I watched, I thought, Wait a minute, I came to see Sarah Chang, but every one of these violinists is as good as she is!

Within a few minutes, I had my first encounter with a world-class concertmaster sound. Despite this being a concert in a small, rural town the PSO had brought the big guns: Andrés Cárdenes. After his 30-second solo in the Dvořák it was some time before I could pick my jaw up off the floor.

Next was Sarah Chang on the Sibelius Concerto. She was all the rage in those years, so I was pretty psyched and enjoyed every second. She turned toward the principal violist during his solo in the first movement, and I still remember the way his sound came barreling out to meet hers. I knew to look out for the build-up in the slow movement, but no recording could have prepared me for how powerful that moment would be live, especially with a brass section like Pittsburgh’s.

After the intermission, the young maestro welcomed us back by speaking briefly about his history as a student at Denison University, pointing back to the balcony and saying it did not seem like long ago he had been a student listening back there to the Vail Concert Series on which he was now performing. The second half of the concert was Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5, and while I was too young to fully appreciate Prokofiev at the time, the power of the music was undeniable. It raged like a war with depths of emotion—both triumphant and sorrowful—that I had not yet, and might never experience. I still remember Daniel’s facial expressions in the final movement as he spun from section to section of the orchestra pulling so much sound from the orchestra I thought that the roof might blow off of Swasey Chapel.

Music School

I went home from that concert with one thought in my head: I have to do that. I had been playing violin since I was four years old and playing in youth orchestras for a few years already, but violin was just one of several hobbies I enjoyed. I had little context of what it would look like to pursue an orchestral career, but I increased my daily practice routine by multiple hours with the dream of playing like (perhaps even among) the violinists in the Pittsburgh Symphony.

I studied the violin with passion throughout high school, and my family traveled to attend more great concerts far beyond our hometown. My auditions for music schools made for some special road trips with my dad, and I landed at Carnegie Mellon University where I could see the Pittsburgh Symphony perform every week and study with many of their musicians. In addition to lessons with my primary teacher, I got to study some of the great concertmaster solos with Andrés Cárdenes and play concertmaster when he conducted the CMU Philharmonic. I sought out lessons with Jeremy Black and Louis Lev and found them to be as kind in person as they were inspiring on stage.

In my sophomore year, I saw an audition posted for the nearby Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra, whose conductor was none other than Daniel Meyer! Playing under Daniel as a member of the WSO built my orchestral experience and often brought back great memories of the day he brought the Pittsburgh Symphony to my small neck of the woods in Ohio.

The Erie Philharmonic

I first played under Daniel Meyer in the Erie Philharmonic as a substitute musician during my undergraduate studies, and I have now had the honor of being a member of the 1st violin section there for seven seasons. The orchestra has grown so much during these years, including a full renovation of the beautiful Warner Theatre. No matter how many concerts I play with Daniel, I continue to respect him for his consistent excellence and graciousness. His short address to the audience at Swasey Chapel in my childhood was just a taste of his unmatched ability to engage an audience and make orchestral music exciting and relevant to community members young and old.

This January, nearly twenty years after I first saw Daniel in concert, I will get to perform the same monumental work—Prokofiev’s 5th Symphony—with him in Erie. I will be playing Principal 2nd Violin, and I am prepared for it to be an emotional experience. I have been through a thing or two since I was 14, and music like this has a way of letting you live it all at once—past, present, even future. My past decade since music school has brought the joys of marriage, three beautiful children, and our own house in Pittsburgh. Becoming a father ignited a new passion that has turned into a meaningful career helping other fathers. As I lead a growing network of fatherhood programs in communities across the country, I am beyond grateful to keep playing incredible concerts with the Erie Philharmonic. For me, it is all connected and meaningful.

My dad does not drive a white truck anymore, but he still works in the window business, managing projects for Marvin across the same Midwest territory he traveled in my youth. He told me the other day that he is doing a historic restoration job at Denison University, the home of Swasey Chapel. We both have a great love for Erie and text each other photos from the Bayfront whenever our work takes us there.

The other pieces on Erie’s January symphonic program are also special. Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan-Williams is forever linked in my mind to a scene in Master and Commander where a man is lost at sea in a storm with that incredible piece of music forming the soundtrack. The first time my brothers and I watched that film with our dad on one of his business trips we started it right over as soon as we finished it—we could tell there was so much more to it than you could get on a first pass. While my dad is not a trained musician himself, certain pieces have stood out to him over the years, and one of these is Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, the remaining piece on the program in Erie.

Go to the Symphony

When you go see a symphony concert, you are taking part in something more special than you might have ever realized. Each performer has a unique story of what put them on that stage and why they connect with each piece of music. When you are in the audience, you take part in those stories as you watch and listen. Each concert becomes part of your story, too, and you never know where it will take you, how it will shape you, and how long you will remember it. I hope you will bring your family to a local symphony concert in 2025. It just might provide an unforgettable experience you can treasure together 20 years from now.

What is the most memorable concert you have ever attended? How did it change your life, and what does it mean to relive it today?