The Legacy Continues
For reasons too cumbersome to explain here, Dave and I decided to go to Victoria, BC for our Thanksgiving break this year. It turned out to be a great decision. The travel element, on the Coho Ferry, was a delight without the chaos of the drive to SeaTac, negotiating the airport itself, and the flight to visit our kids. It was calm and easy.
And it also gave me lots of contemplation time. Since the trip was occasioned by the holiday for giving thanks, I enjoyed mentally walking along those pathways. I was surprised to see some linkages that had previously been hidden from me. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
When we moved to Port Angeles, we never considered investigating the different schools in the neighborhoods we were considering. One day the boys (two sons, one year apart, in 5th and 6th grades when we moved) came home from school very excited because the teachers had announced that a band was being formed and participation was open to all students regardless of experience. My sons had exactly no experience with musical instruments. Zero.
The school district engaged the services of a company which rented instruments. I’ll never forget the day they came to town. To accommodate working parents, the selection opportunity was in the evening.
One of my friends told me about driving her daughter to the instrument selection event. “Don’t make my evening a living hell,” announced the daughter. Evidently, this mother liked to make her opinions known openly and she had a bottomless storage bin of same. Her daughter imagined being second guessed all evening.
I understood this more when my sons came home with their selections. #1 son had a saxophone. OK. #2 son had selected a violin. For some reason, I immediately imagined wildly out of tune so-called music coming from the violin.
Thank goodness I kept that thought to myself. Son #2 liked to make collections, a habit he applied to homework, laps in the pool, and practice time. So he arduously and faithfully practiced on his violin and before long he could play a lovely tune. Nothing solo quality yet, but still when I heard him play, I imagined Itzhak Perlman. That’s a mother for you.
Having the boys involved in music was a blessing. They got to know more friends and experienced a variety of activities. When #1 son participated in the music camp prior to freshman year, he got to know a lot of the students he would be going to high school with and his first day was one of reunions instead of scary introductions.
The Port Angeles School District had a fantastic music program with very dedicated teachers. One of them discovered an opportunity involving Carnegie Hall. Evidently, high school music programs from across the country are invited to apply to participate in this program which includes performing on the stage of Carnegie Hall.
As I write this, a sense of awe overwhelms me, just as it did when we first heard about this plan. You mean, our kids can go to New York City and their orchestra can perform at the legendary Carnegie Hall? Really? Yup, really.
The students embarked on a fund-raising adventure which involved chamber groups playing at different venues here in town as well as car washes. We also realized that our sweet, innocent children might not know how to negotiated a big city like New York. We located a couple of Port Angeles High School graduates who had lived in New York City and invited them in to talk to the kids and give them a tutorial on behavior in a big city. We had zero incidents on the trip.
This was the very first Carnegie Hall trip made by Port Angeles High School Orchestra and our son #2 was privileged to be in that orchestra. Subsequently, the high school decided to take the trip once every four years so that more of the students had the opportunity, but the cost was not too high. Son #2 was in this first group that went.
I don’t think I can adequately describe how I felt sitting in Carnegie Hall watching my son play on stage in the orchestra. I noticed a few buttons were missing from my shirt later, no doubt jettisoned by a mother’s pride! Grateful? A group of children from a rural town in the corner of the country had passed the audition and were playing in one of the most famous performing arts centers in the US as a whole! What an incredible experience. The orchestra had performed at several contests out of town, but nothing came close to the Night at Carnegie Hall.
#1 son was not as ardent a musician, but he did fancy coming into the kitchen often while I was cooking (read: the only person who couldn’t escape) and play me a riff or two on his sax. It would nearly blow me out the window! Wow! Their jazz band performed at an annual concert held at the Elks Lodge and he had a solo. Good times.
Son #2 took private lessons from a local musician who also played in the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra and briefly from the director of the symphony.
While my sons did not pursue music as a career, they both have children who picked it up in school the way they did. In fact we had a second trip to Carnegie Hall when our grandson’s high school band took the trip. He played the trombone, so same class as his father’s sax. Our granddaughter played the piano and we enjoyed listening to her many times.
What I am getting at is that I am grateful for the role music played in our lives as well as those of my children and grandchildren.
In the intervening years, music has remained an important part of our lives. Dave has sung with a variety of different groups and starred in two local productions, “South Pacific” and “Sound of Music.” His rendition of Edelweiss brought tears to my eyes. My active participation in these events was mostly a great deal of fun as I am lacking the talent of others in the family.
And, yes, I am grateful for the role of music in our lives. It provides Dave with a fellowship of guys and meaningful activity. I get to learn new songs every season as I listen to him rehearse.
But, and you may be wondering where this was going, I find myself with an awareness of deep gratitude that dawned on me on our Victoria trip. Lots of time for pondering on that trip.
Two years ago, I was invited to be on the Board of Directors for Field Arts & Events Hall. My reaction was Wow! What an honor. Why am I feeling so honored? Easy answer. This performing arts center is the logical conclusion of decades of activity here on the peninsula. From devoted music teachers in the school system to talented music coaches in the community to supporting parents and community members, the trajectory towards the establishment of a first-class performing arts center is obvious.
In fact, the first donation came in the form of a bequest from a woman who, with her friend, attended the concerts in the high school auditorium in which the friend’s grandchildren performed. Donna Morris thought such musicianship deserved a much better venue and left millions of dollars to create a world class performing arts center in Port Angeles. A non-profit was formed after her passing to figure out how to make that a reality. One of the members of the non-profit, Dorothy Field, realized that coming up with a design was all well and good but where would it be built? So she purchased the last commercially zoned waterfront land in downtown Port Angeles. And gave it to Port Angeles Waterfront Center, the name of the group that would house the performing arts center.
As you may know, that piece of land was more than big enough for a grand concert hall. So the Port Angeles Waterfront Center group decided to share it with the Elwha Tribe for a longhouse and the Feiro Maine Lab for a new maritime center. The concert hall came to be named the Field Arts and Events Hall—it is not only designed for concerts but conferences filling a much-needed spot on the peninsula.
I have never been involved with such incredible leaders as those on this Board of Directors. This has been one adventure after another as we work through the manner of dealing with the pandemic, fund-raising in good times and bad, the sometimes negative reactions of a few in the community and decisions about the physical building itself.
As for those sometimes negative community reactions… There were some in town of the opinion that the money should go to housing for the homeless, or some other very worthy cause, but nothing so frivolous as music. Some of them thought the money was coming from the city or state, both of which contributed small grants, but the very largest amounts of donations were from individuals. Some of these folks just didn’t see the value of a big building downtown.
I will never forget the opening weekend. As I saw folks milling about the grounds prior to entry to the building for the public viewing or free concert, I could see many with frowns—looks of disapproval. While I was wandering through the building myself, I noticed something very interesting. Many of those frowns were turning, as they say, upside down. In general, people were amazed and awe struck by the gorgeous interior. The disapproval morphed into pride.
I cannot give a million dollars to this endeavor, but I am so grateful to be part of the Field Hall family—doing my small part to continue the legacy enjoyed by my family, from my children on to us. In fact, David sings with a group called Peninsula Men’s Gospel Singers and they performed on that concert stage two months after the opening.
So during these days of Thanksgiving, I find myself drawn to a place of deep gratitude for the privilege of being involved with this stunning concert hall and conference center. I smile as I think about the thousands of people who will enjoy these facilities in the years to come as well as the continued efforts of the school district music program, talented adults who give lessons, and the parents who start out on this path listening to the worse than amateur practice of their child on an instrument—but stick with it.