Jr. High Orchestra and Choir

Jr High was also my introduction to Orchestra and Choir. I don’t remember who the Orchestra director was, but the Choir director was Mr. Tully. I was a middling violin player and, for those two years, had a crush on the lead violinist, Antoinette Antinopolis. But nothing ever came of that; she had absolutely no interest in me, though we did eventually have the same violin teacher from then into high school, Professor Uraslav Barnach. My lesson was immediately after her’s. She never even acknowledged my presence as we passed each other in and out of Professor Barnach’s studio. Midway through ninth grade, Prof. Barnach retired, and I had to find a different teacher. More on that later.

Also, during this time, we started entering the citywide instrumental auditions held every year in the early spring. While many of the kids who entered had music stands set up and played from their sheet music, Prof Barnach insisted that I only play memorized pieces, which I did every year. I always did pretty well, usually a #1 rating. These were also the preliminaries for the State Music Education Association Auditions, held at the end of the school year, late June, if I remember correctly. I didn’t enter those until my Jr. Year of high school, and it was the vocal competition that I entered, not the instrumental. More about that later as well.

In choir, Mr. Tully was impressed with my voice and helped me learn and perform some church music for Mom’s church, which he also had me perform in his. He also had me sing at a couple of PTA meetings, a couple of tunes that Mom picked out… I don’t remember what they were anymore. Mom was impressed too and started me taking voice lessons from my sisters’ piano teacher, Mrs. Fisher, who was also a vocal instructor. As I may have previously mentioned, Mom always loved opera and wanted to be a performer. And I think she wanted to see her dream fulfilled through me. 

So, by the time I started high school, I was taking voice and violin lessons, singing in church and occasionally playing violin duets with Guy there too, and swimming at the Y. Oh, and working with Dad on the weekends and during the summers. He paid me $10/week as his gofor… And more on that later, too. As you can see, by the time I started high school, my life was starting to get very complicated.

Note: We (Guy and I) were starting to play around with guitars and singing folk music during this period, too.

To be Continued

–LE

PS: I’ve already posted a poem paying tribute to Antoinette, called Crush on a Greek Goddes: https://simplegeezer.wordpress.com/2023/03/30/crush-on-a-greek-goddess/.