{"id":407,"date":"2012-01-11T15:17:15","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T20:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/creatived\/wp\/?p=407"},"modified":"2012-01-11T15:44:47","modified_gmt":"2012-01-11T20:44:47","slug":"field-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/creatived\/2012\/01\/field-trip.html","title":{"rendered":"Field Trip!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra<\/p><\/div>\n

Throw a stone in a lake and watch the rings dance. They last a long time.<\/p>\n

Ray Sommerfield threw a stone over fifty years ago.<\/p>\n

Back in 1960 he loaded up nine of his students from Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania and drove them off to hear a concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra.<\/p>\n

There wasn’t a school bus available, so he borrowed a hearse.<\/p>\n

Yes, a hearse. Not the most elegant way to go to a concert, but it would do.<\/p>\n

It seems that Mr. Sommerfield was a man of strong convictions. He thought his students, even though they lived in a small town, should have the opportunity to hear great music – live. Not everyone agreed with his teaching methods. They thought he was too rebellious – he didn’t follow the rules. Some thought he wasn’t really “teaching” at all.<\/p>\n

But, inside that hearse on its way to Philadelphia was a boy named John, and, on this day in 1960, his life would change forever. He heard Eugene Ormandy conduct a concert of Tchaikovsky: the Serenade for Strings, the Violin Concerto with Isaac Stern, and the Pathetique Symphony.<\/p>\n

“It was the strings during the opening of the Sixth Symphony that got me,” John said. “I can still see the movement of the violins. The sound was so beautiful. I had no idea such a thing existed. After that, I was hooked.”<\/p>\n

I met John, now an architect in New York, sitting next to me at the bar during a Sunday Brunch at the Red Rooster<\/a> in Harlem. In the background Belinda Munro<\/a>, a lovely singer from Toronto whose smile alone could stop a room, treated all of us to a playlist ranging from gospels to the Beatles. As we had our meal, John and I discussed music.<\/p>\n

I mentioned a Baroque program that I had recently conducted in Santo Domingo<\/a> that included one of Handel’s Concerto Grossi.<\/p>\n

“Op. 6?”<\/p>\n

“Wow! Are you a musician?”<\/p>\n

“No. I just listen. What unknown Baroque composer should I know?” he inquired.<\/p>\n

“Try Boyce,” I answered – to which he replied, “Yes, I have all of his symphonies. I love the trumpets in the Fifth.”<\/p>\n

“Do you know Geminiani?”<\/p>\n

“Of course.”<\/p>\n

“Locatelli?”<\/p>\n

“I’ll check him out. I really would like to find some new Germans.”<\/p>\n

“Let’s see,” I said, “Have you heard Graupner?”<\/p>\n

“Yes, I love his music! By the way, do you know Aubert? I just discovered him.”<\/p>\n

“I’ve heard of him,” I said, “but I haven’t listened to his music yet.”<\/p>\n

“I also love the Romantic Era. I just heard Haitink lead the Bruckner Seventh with the Philharmonic<\/a>. It was incredible. Were you there?”<\/p>\n

Now, take a moment with me and step back from this conversation.<\/p>\n

John is an architect who doesn’t play music. He just got hooked because fifty-two years ago, an English teacher thought there was something more to teach his students than just the next lesson in the textbook.<\/p>\n

I think he just taught his lesson again.<\/p>\n

How do you build an arts community? You decide to invite someone to a concert.<\/p>\n

If there isn’t a bus, you take a hearse; you trust the Art to do the rest.<\/p>\n

Throw a stone in a lake and watch the rings dance.<\/p>\n

They last a long time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Throw a stone in a lake and watch the rings dance. They last a long time. Ray Sommerfield threw a stone over fifty years ago. Back in 1960 he loaded up nine of his students from Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania and drove them off to hear a concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra. There wasn’t a school bus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/creatived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/creatived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/creatived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/creatived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/creatived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/creatived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/creatived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/creatived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/creatived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/creatived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}