CLASSICAL MUSIC ANYONE?

As Nixon used to say, "I'm glad you asked that question."





Music has, and always will be, my first love. I was introduced to classical music at a very young age; in fact, Swan Lake was the first musical work that I became famliar with at the ripe age of five. My mother says I was so enthralled by it that I wanted to take our record of it to kindergarten for Show and Tell (can't recall if I actually did or not).





I studied piano and theory with my grandmother as a kid. She was a pianist herself and was in dominant seventh heaven when she realized I was musically inclined (we had enough engineers in the family already). Then in sixth grade, I began taking drum lessons. It wasn't until I entered high school that it all came together, so to speak. My band director was a percussionist and a Juillard graduate, and when he found out I had absloute pitch, he suggested I play timpani. Well, as they say, the rest is history. I went on to major in music in college and while my daily job is in the real world, I never put the timpani mallets away and today am timpanist of a Denver orchestra (no, not the Colorado Symphony). Last summer I saw my old band director for the first time in over 30 years and was able to tell him that thanks to him, I'm still playing timpani today.





Beethoven ranks first among my favorite composers. He knew how to write for timpani. Chaikovsky (the T is unneccesary, so I read) is up there, too, along with Brahms, Dvorak and Mendelssohn. Over the years I've played much of the standard repertoire. I've done the entire Nutcracker twice and know it inside out. Mozart is wonderful, but IMHO it's almost too pure, although I LOVEthe alla turca movement from his A Major piano sonata, K331. Although I'm not much of an opera buff, Marriage of Figaro is my favorite - mainly because no one dies.





I was always strong in theory and love to talk music, but I can count on one hand the number of people I know with whom I can talkmusic in depth. Once I get going, good luck trying to shut me up! It's like trying to recork a gushing champagne bottle.