I arrived in a musical family; my folks met
when the tenor needed an accompanist, in Sequoia ....
Dorothy sat me down when I was four saying,
"Here's middle C, kid." She got the language in me
before I revolted,
as Bach demanded more than my little
perfectionist's brain could pull off.

At a football game I first saw a trombone player
in Ed's hs/ jc band, and it was love at first site,
while fretlessness still remains my longest love.
I jumped through the baritone and tuba
landing with the french horn, which mixed romance
lasted for more than 40 years in community and
semi-professional orchestras and with one
season with the North Carolina symphony
traveling about doing children's concerts in the afternoons
and black tie affairs in the evenings.

My brother officially played piccolo in the West Point band
as a front for being the viola in the Colonel's
private string quartet. He moved to Sweden
after a stint, curiously, in what the North Carolina
Symphony had evolved into. In Sweden, he started
in a Lawrence Welk knockoff before becoming
a charter member in the Uppsala Kammersolister,
touring Sweden and the continent as well as recording.
The State Officialdom combined this Swedish string performance icon with
the remnants of a military band. This ended the group,
with Jim taking the position of Stringed Instruments
at Western State in Gunnison and several years
as conductor of the Valley Symphony Orchestra.

My 7 year alternating stints in California
were interspersed playing with Silverton's
Great Western Rocky Mountain Brass Bands,
John Kincaid's British Brass Bands
and the Western Colorado Brass Quintet.

All this time I'd sung, starting in the succession
of church choirs Ed led in his search for a church
home, and in jc, college and community choirs
in California and Colorado.

My last in California were in LA, with Cantori Domino
and a tour of the places Bach wrote the works
we performed there, with Roger Wagner's daughter
Jeanine, in her Wagner Ensemble,
and several summer performance weeks,
gratefuly singing and soloing with Sir David Wilcocks.

I returned to Delta county, discovering to my delight
Kelly Neill ( Most Impressive tuba player as a hs senior
in the W Colorado Brass Quintet) ensconsed at Delta HS conducting the
band and having created the fine group
that has become the VSO choir. This choir was
where the first hints of Dolce Voce emerged,
now numberless years ago ...