What are Your Musical Memories?

Something as mundane as folding laundry can take me on a trip: here’s the souvenir t-shirt from this winter’s trip to Florida, last summer’s Vermont vacation, a trip to Colorado a few years’ back, or a memorable Paris vacation.

In much the same way, music can have that same effect, transporting me to a particular time and place – be it a pop hit from high school, that dance number that was popular in the clubs during college, the music that was played at my wedding.

Just the other day, I heard the acoustic hit single “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas on the radio and grew nostalgic, thinking of long summer days during school breaks. I could even picture the 45 single I bought when it first came out (yes, I know I’m dating myself!) and, amazingly, was able to find it in my record collection.

What is one of your musical memories? We posed this question to the RPO musicians and staff – read on for their responses … and you can post one of your own as a comment.

And by the way, if I lived at the RPO Symphony Showhouse, I could be inspired by Carmina Burana as I was folding my laundry … but that’s another story – click here.

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As I and my son Josef think of Mozart's Sinfonia concertante and the Liszt Piano Concerto in Eb, we invariably get transported to a capacity-filled, standing room-only Eastman Theatre with our family being featured as soloists with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in performances of these works on a memorable evening of 1985.

Music is a marvelous time machine. Memories of our performances as a family and our extended family of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra's musicians connect me and my son within the spirit of my family and our eternal music making throughout our lives and our work together.

– Michail and Josef Verba

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Bernstein's "Symphonic Dances” from West Side Story will probably always bring me back to my first job, which was with a training orchestra in Miami Beach. We rehearsed the piece so thoroughly that I think everyone had it nearly memorized, then we took it on a very exotic and exciting tour to South America.

– Lara Sipols

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During our recent performances of the Verdi Requiem, I kept thinking of the first time I played during the Spoleto festival in Italy. The brass fanfare players surrounded the audience, performing from private balconies. It was overwhelmingly beautiful.

– Heidi Brodwin

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Violinist Fritz Kreisler playing Liebesfreud (appropriately, “Love’s Joy”) on one of my first dates with my now-husband of 30+ years. Has to be Kreisler himself playing, scratchy recording and all!

– Amy Blum

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Vaughan Williams’ Concerto in A minor for Oboe and Strings. My absolute favorite. A dear friend of mine, who played oboe in the RPYO during high school, introduced it to me then… and every time I hear it, it takes me somewhere new.

– Nancy Goldsmith Zawacki

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This is kinda silly, but… Anything by Norah Jones reminds me of the beginning of my senior year of college…transports me back to hanging out in our apartment kitchen with the windows all open and the breeze flowing. Definitely summertime music.

– Sarah Goldstein Post