My high school orchestra director is retiring this year... it's bittersweet really. He's been teaching at Caledonia for 35 years, and he's the one who started the program! Our entire family has had him as a Conductor and we've stayed in touch after we all graduated. He's the reason why I joined the GR Symphonette in the first place! I love playing under his direction, probably because I've been doing it for so long. I started orchestra in fourth grade with him and went all the way up to graduation... it's crazy to think that he won't be teaching there anymore!
He has done great things with this program and I know that the music community is going to miss him. I do not envy the person they hire to replace him (although I have a few friends that I would love to have back in the area and they would do a great job, but transition is always hard...) as he has been such a legend in Cali! The school did start a scholarship fund in his honor, which is awesome.
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| His daughter sang a solo |
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| Presenting the scholarhip |
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| Acknowledging his family |
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| With the soloist |
I got the opportunity to go to his final concert, which was emotional and awesome. As I was driving to Caledonia I was just hoping that I was going to be able to contain myself... haha. I suppose this post is more of a personal thing for myself because a lot of you don't know who he is, or how wonderful he is, but you'll just have to take my word for it.
JVG
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