The Lives of Alumni (2 of 14), Mark Christianson, Part 2
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0:01 - 0:04Well, in thinking about that that summer
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0:04 - 0:07my dad said well let’s look
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0:07 - 0:09at maybe some other things.
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0:09 - 0:11And one of those other things was
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0:11 - 0:13let’s take a look at this Sudbury Valley School.
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0:13 - 0:16And so that summer
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0:16 - 0:18I’m not sure if it was June or July
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0:18 - 0:23but some time in that summer of 1968 came
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0:23 - 0:27and came upstairs for our meeting
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0:27 - 0:30with Joan and my parents.
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0:30 - 0:34And that was really quite a day in my life
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0:35 - 0:40because Joan kind of acted as a therapist
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0:40 - 0:47and also as a parent but she wasn’t my parent,
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0:47 - 0:51but she was a parent to me,
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0:51 - 0:54and she said well,
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0:54 - 0:58what do you want to do with your life?
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0:58 - 1:01Do you want to go to this technical high school?
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1:01 - 1:04That could mean giving up your music
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1:04 - 1:08because you’re going to be channeled into an MIT or
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1:08 - 1:11– and maybe I would have been good enough
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1:11 - 1:13or had the energy to do
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1:13 - 1:14a couple of different things in my life
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1:14 - 1:17such as a science background and music.
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1:17 - 1:19But I didn’t think that I had it in me to do that
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1:19 - 1:22so I said you know I’m not ready
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1:22 - 1:24to give up the past few years
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1:24 - 1:27of a burgeoning interest in music
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1:27 - 1:30and instrumentalism for that.
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1:30 - 1:34So she said you’re going be allowed to do...
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1:34 - 1:37to pursue your dreams here at Sudbury Valley.
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1:37 - 1:41And she said it may be a little bit scary at first
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1:41 - 1:44because we don’t have quite the same structure
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1:44 - 1:47as a Boston Technical High School.
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1:47 - 1:51You’re going to have to create your own structure here.
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1:51 - 1:55And I think my next four years,
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1:55 - 1:58because that summer we decided
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1:58 - 2:00that I should go here,
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2:00 - 2:03I should give it a shot – just give it a shot.
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2:03 - 2:07Well, I wound up spending four years at Sudbury,
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2:07 - 2:09graduating in ‘72.
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2:09 - 2:10So I guess you could say that I was
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2:10 - 2:15in the first four-year class
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2:15 - 2:18of a high school graduating class
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2:18 - 2:20– I guess I was in that class.
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2:20 - 2:23So I presented my thesis
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2:23 - 2:25in front of the School Meeting
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2:25 - 2:28that I believe it was April or May
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2:28 - 2:29and it was successfully . . .
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2:29 - 2:32I guess I successfully defended my thesis
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2:32 - 2:34that I would be responsible in the community
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2:34 - 2:37for my life and for my career
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2:37 - 2:40and I hopefully showed that
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2:40 - 2:46and I set forth on basically the rest of my life.
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2:46 - 2:48That spring I auditioned
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2:48 - 2:51for the New England Conservatory of Music
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2:51 - 2:55and got accepted as a Freshman French horn player.
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2:55 - 2:57Throughout my years at Sudbury
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2:57 - 3:01I was diligently practising the French Horn
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3:01 - 3:05and also on Saturday mornings
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3:05 - 3:08going to the New England Conservatory Prep Division
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3:08 - 3:11taking lessons not only in French horn
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3:11 - 3:14but also in additional music theory
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3:14 - 3:18and I had ensembles – wind ensembles,
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3:18 - 3:21and I don’t think I had orchestra back then
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3:21 - 3:24– but it was some wind ensemble experience
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3:24 - 3:27in the community.
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3:27 - 3:29We didn’t have a band or orchestra
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3:29 - 3:30here at Sudbury Valley
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3:30 - 3:32but we did have a staff member or two
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3:32 - 3:36who were musicians and developed
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3:36 - 3:39and fostered my education here as a musician
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3:39 - 3:42and I played small ensembles with them
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3:42 - 3:44and they also
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3:44 - 3:47– to mention one in particular
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3:47 - 3:49that was Jan McDaniel –
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3:49 - 3:52really helped me a lot in my early days
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3:52 - 3:55of deciding to become a musician
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3:55 - 4:00and helping me to find my own way to do that.
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4:00 - 4:04So I spent a lot of time here pursuing that dream
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4:04 - 4:08and I’ve been lucky enough
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4:08 - 4:10to be in the music profession
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4:10 - 4:13as a performing musician
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4:13 - 4:15now for some twenty-seven years,
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4:15 - 4:18making my living at that
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4:18 - 4:21and it’s not an easy profession to be in
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4:21 - 4:23and many of my teachers have said
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4:23 - 4:26you know Mark it’s really a business
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4:26 - 4:30because these organizations have to make ends meet.
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4:30 - 4:35And nowadays, there are many creative ways
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4:35 - 4:38that ensembles have to do that
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4:38 - 4:40but so many of them have tremendous deficits
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4:40 - 4:42if they don’t have endowments and
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4:42 - 4:45but that’s a whole other story so . . .
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4:45 - 4:48Anyway, to get back – I graduated from SVS
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4:48 - 4:52and went on to the New England Conservatory.
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4:52 - 4:55After my Freshman year there
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4:55 - 4:57I did some soul searching,
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4:57 - 5:00I had some physical problems with braces
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5:00 - 5:05and I took a year off trying to figure out
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5:05 - 5:07what my next move would be.
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5:07 - 5:09Would I come back to New England Conservatory
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5:09 - 5:12having gotten braces and having some problems
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5:12 - 5:15actually playing the French horn.
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5:15 - 5:17In an attempt to make myself play better,
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5:17 - 5:20I got braces and it was a kind of mixed result.
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5:20 - 5:23And I had high standards for what I wanted to do
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5:23 - 5:25so I took the year off.
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5:25 - 5:28Eventually, I wound up having roots in Minnesota
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5:28 - 5:31at the University of Minnesota and that’s a...
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5:31 - 5:33getting there is a whole other story in itself
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5:33 - 5:36because I didn’t have traditional transcripts.
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5:36 - 5:38And so they wanted to know what the heck
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5:38 - 5:41I was doing with my four years of high school.
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5:41 - 5:44Well, I had taken the SAT test my senior year here
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5:44 - 5:46– or my fourth year here –
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5:46 - 5:48and they were respectable
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5:48 - 5:51as I told Danny earlier tonight.
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5:51 - 5:53But they made me write a thesis – what have you done?
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5:53 - 5:56They wanted something like 15 or 20 pages and
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5:56 - 6:00so I think me just presenting
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6:00 - 6:02my thesis of responsibility
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6:02 - 6:05at Sudbury Valley to graduate
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6:05 - 6:07helped me when I got out into the world
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6:07 - 6:09and they were saying
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6:09 - 6:12we don’t know what you’ve done here,
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6:12 - 6:14except for your credits
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6:14 - 6:15from the New England Conservatory
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6:15 - 6:18which did transfer over to Minnesota.
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6:18 - 6:20They said we don’t know what to call you
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6:20 - 6:24if you’re not going to be majoring in the French horn.
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6:24 - 6:26You’ve got some music credits here
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6:26 - 6:28and history and theory of music
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6:28 - 6:31but we need to figure out
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6:31 - 6:33how to get you into this institution
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6:33 - 6:36if we are ever even going to accept you.
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6:36 - 6:38So I wrote a fifteen page essay
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6:38 - 6:40and luckily got accepted
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6:40 - 6:43and four years and a summer later
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6:43 - 6:46I wound up with a degree in music
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6:46 - 6:49– a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree –
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6:49 - 6:51with a speciality in oboe.
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6:51 - 6:54Now in my twentieth year of life I switched to the oboe
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6:54 - 6:56and it was a very natural fit for me.
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6:56 - 6:59Perhaps for those of you that want a little more detail
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6:59 - 7:02can talk to me afterwards of how that exactly happened
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7:02 - 7:04but four years at Minnesota,
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7:04 - 7:06wound up with a degree.
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7:06 - 7:09I then applied to Northwestern University in Chicago
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7:09 - 7:10and I got in
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7:10 - 7:14as one of the two graduate students majoring in oboe.
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7:14 - 7:17And I got to study with the principal oboist
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7:17 - 7:19at the Chicago Symphony.
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7:19 - 7:22I was his graduate teaching assistant
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7:22 - 7:25and had a great couple of years there
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7:25 - 7:28– really, really wonderful years.
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7:28 - 7:30I got to play extra in the Chicago Symphony with him.
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7:30 - 7:35And it was hard, it was very hard
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7:35 - 7:39because I had taken up the oboe rather late in life
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7:39 - 7:44although I had a real background in music
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7:44 - 7:48from a young kid and it was in my heart,
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7:48 - 7:52it was in my blood, that I needed to be a musician.
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7:52 - 7:54And the year that I took off
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7:54 - 7:57between New England and getting into Minnesota,
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7:57 - 7:59I did some soul searching and thinking
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7:59 - 8:02I’m going to go off in a different path
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8:02 - 8:04but I just couldn’t do it.
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8:04 - 8:06I had to stay with my music and take that chance
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8:06 - 8:08so I went to Northwestern,
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8:08 - 8:11spent an extra year in Chicago after I graduated
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8:11 - 8:13– freelancing and learning a little bit more
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8:13 - 8:16about the trade of being a professional musician.
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8:16 - 8:19As a freelancer and hitting the audition circuit
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8:19 - 8:22and being a professional musician is
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8:22 - 8:27as Nikole and I have talked about
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8:27 - 8:31is really putting your life on the line
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8:31 - 8:34for what you love to do.
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8:34 - 8:39And I took a chance that I would do this
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8:39 - 8:41because I had to do this.
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8:41 - 8:43I felt that I had to be a musician because
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8:43 - 8:48it was really everything I had done in my life.
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8:48 - 8:50I didn’t want to do anything else.
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8:50 - 8:55As quite a few of my music teachers have told me,
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8:55 - 9:01don’t do music unless you have to.
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9:01 - 9:04And that is kind of a two-sided coin meaning yeah,
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9:04 - 9:06it’s a tough business
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9:06 - 9:08– it’s like being an actor in Hollywood
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9:08 - 9:11where you go to LA and you wait tables
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9:11 - 9:14and you hope for a lucky break.
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9:14 - 9:16And if you’re good, that helps a lot.
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9:16 - 9:19But there’s no guarantees.
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9:19 - 9:22But then again there’s no guarantees in life either.
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9:22 - 9:28There’s some perhaps more...
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9:28 - 9:32how can I put it...
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9:32 - 9:35more ways that are easier
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9:35 - 9:38– that if you follow a prescribed course,
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9:38 - 9:41more than likely you’ll
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9:41 - 9:43get to a place that you’ve tried to get to
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9:43 - 9:48but after I graduated from Northwestern
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9:48 - 9:50and spent that year in Chicago,
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9:50 - 9:54I got my first professional job in a symphony orchestra
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9:54 - 9:57and I knew that I would probably
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9:57 -have to travel...
- Title:
- The Lives of Alumni (2 of 14), Mark Christianson, Part 2
- Description:
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The life of Mark Christianson, '68-'72, professional musician with the President's Own Marine Band. Five alumni speak at the Sudbury Valley School, for the 40th anniversary.
- Video Language:
- English
- Duration:
- 09:59
cdarbaud edited English subtitles for The Lives of Alumni (2 of 14), Mark Christianson, Part 2 | ||
cdarbaud edited English subtitles for The Lives of Alumni (2 of 14), Mark Christianson, Part 2 | ||
cdarbaud edited English subtitles for The Lives of Alumni (2 of 14), Mark Christianson, Part 2 | ||
cdarbaud added a translation |