Letters to the Editor 03/14/2012

To the Editor:

One evening at dinner the strains of Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite and his Holberg Suite softly filled the background. I was transported back to 1936 in grade school when Music Appreciation was a required weekly hours.

A Miss Seaman held forth and we were exposed to Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, Grieg, Bizet and many other masters of classical music. That, combined with a family which stressed music as an important part of life's culture, has given me a lifetime of pleasure. It gave me the opportunity in high school to lay in an Allstate Music Festival under the conductor/composer Howard Hanson, then head of Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York as well as in a small theatre orchestra - it was a high point of my life at that tender age.

Recently, I was privileged to attend a concert of the Central Oregon Symphony directed by Michael Gesme, who of himself represents all the culture invested in classical music. In that orchestra were several high school artists, recognized by Maestro Gesme at one point in the concert and I once again was aware of the years of joy and pleasure afforded me by virtue of that early music appreciation. I was thrilled to realize that some of today's young people will get to know the same sublime joy provided by classical music.

As I read of the struggle on the part of today's educators to "reinvent the educational wheel" I only hope that music appreciation might be a part of their formative years, alongside basketball, wrestling, Twitter and Facebook. It will be their companion through many of life's battles and will insure that America will retain a semblance of culture.

Russel B. Williams