0:00:00.643,0:00:04.209
Well, in thinking about that that summer

0:00:04.209,0:00:06.874
my dad said well let’s look

0:00:06.874,0:00:08.809
at maybe some other things.

0:00:08.809,0:00:11.099
And one of those other things was

0:00:11.099,0:00:13.280
let’s take a look at this Sudbury Valley School.

0:00:13.280,0:00:15.616
And so that summer

0:00:15.616,0:00:17.601
I’m not sure if it was June or July

0:00:17.601,0:00:23.257
but some time in that summer of 1968 came

0:00:23.257,0:00:27.261
and came upstairs for our meeting

0:00:27.261,0:00:30.230
with Joan and my parents.

0:00:30.230,0:00:33.934
And that was really quite a day in my life

0:00:35.472,0:00:40.340
because Joan kind of acted as a therapist

0:00:40.340,0:00:46.747
and also as a parent but she wasn’t my parent,

0:00:46.747,0:00:51.347
but she was a parent to me,

0:00:51.347,0:00:53.859
and she said well,

0:00:53.859,0:00:58.358
what do you want to do with your life?

0:00:58.358,0:01:01.280
Do you want to go to this technical high school?

0:01:01.280,0:01:04.231
That could mean giving up your music

0:01:04.231,0:01:07.901
because you’re going to be channeled into an MIT or

0:01:07.901,0:01:10.604
– and maybe I would have been good enough

0:01:10.604,0:01:12.573
or had the energy to do

0:01:12.573,0:01:14.308
a couple of different things in my life

0:01:14.308,0:01:16.710
such as a science background and music.

0:01:16.710,0:01:19.311
But I didn’t think that I had it in me to do that

0:01:19.311,0:01:22.182
so I said you know I’m not ready

0:01:22.182,0:01:24.184
to give up the past few years

0:01:24.184,0:01:26.742
of a burgeoning interest in music

0:01:26.742,0:01:29.566
and instrumentalism for that.

0:01:29.566,0:01:33.961
So she said you’re going be allowed to do...

0:01:33.961,0:01:37.364
to pursue your dreams here at Sudbury Valley.

0:01:37.364,0:01:40.834
And she said it may be a little bit scary at first

0:01:40.834,0:01:43.904
because we don’t have quite the same structure

0:01:43.904,0:01:47.305
as a Boston Technical High School.

0:01:47.305,0:01:51.331
You’re going to have to create your own structure here.

0:01:51.331,0:01:55.176
And I think my next four years,

0:01:55.176,0:01:58.151
because that summer we decided

0:01:58.151,0:02:00.095
that I should go here,

0:02:00.095,0:02:03.370
I should give it a shot – just give it a shot.

0:02:03.370,0:02:06.627
Well, I wound up spending four years at Sudbury,

0:02:06.627,0:02:08.562
graduating in ‘72.

0:02:08.562,0:02:10.497
So I guess you could say that I was

0:02:10.497,0:02:14.701
in the first four-year class

0:02:14.701,0:02:17.938
of a high school graduating class

0:02:17.938,0:02:20.007
– I guess I was in that class.

0:02:20.007,0:02:22.509
So I presented my thesis

0:02:22.509,0:02:25.112
in front of the School Meeting

0:02:25.112,0:02:27.814
that I believe it was April or May

0:02:27.814,0:02:29.383
and it was successfully . . .

0:02:29.383,0:02:31.818
I guess I successfully defended my thesis

0:02:31.818,0:02:34.088
that I would be responsible in the community

0:02:34.088,0:02:37.491
for my life and for my career

0:02:37.491,0:02:39.626
and I hopefully showed that

0:02:39.626,0:02:45.766
and I set forth on basically the rest of my life.

0:02:45.766,0:02:48.068
That spring I auditioned

0:02:48.068,0:02:50.937
for the New England Conservatory of Music

0:02:50.937,0:02:54.541
and got accepted as a Freshman French horn player.

0:02:54.541,0:02:57.344
Throughout my years at Sudbury

0:02:57.344,0:03:01.388
I was diligently practising the French Horn

0:03:01.393,0:03:04.927
and also on Saturday mornings

0:03:04.927,0:03:08.175
going to the New England Conservatory Prep Division

0:03:08.175,0:03:11.458
taking lessons not only in French horn

0:03:11.458,0:03:13.994
but also in additional music theory

0:03:13.994,0:03:17.564
and I had ensembles – wind ensembles,

0:03:17.564,0:03:20.901
and I don’t think I had orchestra back then

0:03:20.901,0:03:24.371
– but it was some wind ensemble experience

0:03:24.371,0:03:26.773
in the community.

0:03:26.773,0:03:28.840
We didn’t have a band or orchestra

0:03:28.840,0:03:30.410
here at Sudbury Valley

0:03:30.410,0:03:32.446
but we did have a staff member or two

0:03:32.446,0:03:35.716
who were musicians and developed

0:03:35.716,0:03:39.186
and fostered my education here as a musician

0:03:39.186,0:03:41.922
and I played small ensembles with them

0:03:41.922,0:03:43.990
and they also

0:03:43.990,0:03:46.793
– to mention one in particular

0:03:46.793,0:03:49.262
that was Jan McDaniel –

0:03:49.262,0:03:51.932
really helped me a lot in my early days

0:03:51.932,0:03:54.835
of deciding to become a musician

0:03:54.835,0:03:59.539
and helping me to find my own way to do that.

0:03:59.539,0:04:04.411
So I spent a lot of time here pursuing that dream

0:04:04.411,0:04:07.714
and I’ve been lucky enough

0:04:07.714,0:04:09.916
to be in the music profession

0:04:09.916,0:04:12.604
as a performing musician

0:04:12.604,0:04:14.506
now for some twenty-seven years,

0:04:14.506,0:04:17.613
making my living at that

0:04:17.628,0:04:20.833
and it’s not an easy profession to be in

0:04:20.833,0:04:23.389
and many of my teachers have said

0:04:23.389,0:04:26.333
you know Mark it’s really a business

0:04:26.333,0:04:30.237
because these organizations have to make ends meet.

0:04:30.237,0:04:34.574
And nowadays, there are many creative ways

0:04:34.574,0:04:37.611
that ensembles have to do that

0:04:37.611,0:04:39.980
but so many of them have tremendous deficits

0:04:39.980,0:04:42.315
if they don’t have endowments and

0:04:42.315,0:04:44.684
but that’s a whole other story so . . .

0:04:44.684,0:04:48.188
Anyway, to get back – I graduated from SVS

0:04:48.188,0:04:51.625
and went on to the New England Conservatory.

0:04:51.625,0:04:54.594
After my Freshman year there

0:04:54.594,0:04:56.963
I did some soul searching,

0:04:56.963,0:05:00.500
I had some physical problems with braces

0:05:00.500,0:05:04.739
and I took a year off trying to figure out

0:05:04.739,0:05:06.907
what my next move would be.

0:05:06.907,0:05:09.209
Would I come back to New England Conservatory

0:05:09.209,0:05:12.249
having gotten braces and having some problems

0:05:12.249,0:05:14.672
actually playing the French horn.

0:05:14.672,0:05:17.217
In an attempt to make myself play better,

0:05:17.217,0:05:20.253
I got braces and it was a kind of mixed result.

0:05:20.253,0:05:23.092
And I had high standards for what I wanted to do

0:05:23.092,0:05:25.225
so I took the year off.

0:05:25.225,0:05:28.094
Eventually, I wound up having roots in Minnesota

0:05:28.094,0:05:30.697
at the University of Minnesota and that’s a...

0:05:30.697,0:05:32.766
getting there is a whole other story in itself

0:05:32.766,0:05:36.002
because I didn’t have traditional transcripts.

0:05:36.002,0:05:38.222
And so they wanted to know what the heck

0:05:38.222,0:05:40.540
I was doing with my four years of high school.

0:05:40.540,0:05:44.411
Well, I had taken the SAT test my senior year here

0:05:44.411,0:05:46.067
– or my fourth year here –

0:05:46.067,0:05:48.156
and they were respectable

0:05:48.156,0:05:50.550
as I told Danny earlier tonight.

0:05:50.550,0:05:53.086
But they made me write a thesis – what have you done?

0:05:53.086,0:05:56.389
They wanted something like 15 or 20 pages and

0:05:56.389,0:05:59.604
so I think me just presenting

0:05:59.604,0:06:02.171
my thesis of responsibility

0:06:02.171,0:06:04.731
at Sudbury Valley to graduate

0:06:04.731,0:06:07.334
helped me when I got out into the world

0:06:07.334,0:06:09.383
and they were saying

0:06:09.383,0:06:11.671
we don’t know what you’ve done here,

0:06:11.671,0:06:13.707
except for your credits

0:06:13.707,0:06:15.408
from the New England Conservatory

0:06:15.408,0:06:17.777
which did transfer over to Minnesota.

0:06:17.777,0:06:20.213
They said we don’t know what to call you

0:06:20.213,0:06:24.117
if you’re not going to be majoring in the French horn.

0:06:24.117,0:06:26.152
You’ve got some music credits here

0:06:26.152,0:06:28.388
and history and theory of music

0:06:28.388,0:06:30.657
but we need to figure out

0:06:30.657,0:06:33.293
how to get you into this institution

0:06:33.293,0:06:35.529
if we are ever even going to accept you.

0:06:35.529,0:06:37.631
So I wrote a fifteen page essay

0:06:37.631,0:06:39.833
and luckily got accepted

0:06:39.833,0:06:42.903
and four years and a summer later

0:06:42.903,0:06:46.256
I wound up with a degree in music

0:06:46.256,0:06:48.541
– a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree –

0:06:48.541,0:06:50.792
with a speciality in oboe.

0:06:50.792,0:06:53.519
Now in my twentieth year of life I switched to the oboe

0:06:53.519,0:06:56.142
and it was a very natural fit for me.

0:06:56.142,0:06:59.179
Perhaps for those of you that want a little more detail

0:06:59.179,0:07:02.166
can talk to me afterwards of how that exactly happened

0:07:02.166,0:07:04.063
but four years at Minnesota,

0:07:04.063,0:07:06.439
wound up with a degree.

0:07:06.439,0:07:08.857
I then applied to Northwestern University in Chicago

0:07:08.857,0:07:10.435
and I got in

0:07:10.435,0:07:14.167
as one of the two graduate students majoring in oboe.

0:07:14.167,0:07:16.770
And I got to study with the principal oboist

0:07:16.770,0:07:19.043
at the Chicago Symphony.

0:07:19.043,0:07:21.942
I was his graduate teaching assistant

0:07:21.942,0:07:25.320
and had a great couple of years there

0:07:25.320,0:07:28.014
– really, really wonderful years.

0:07:28.014,0:07:30.450
I got to play extra in the Chicago Symphony with him.

0:07:30.450,0:07:34.888
And it was hard, it was very hard

0:07:34.888,0:07:38.892
because I had taken up the oboe rather late in life

0:07:38.892,0:07:43.762
although I had a real background in music

0:07:43.762,0:07:47.942
from a young kid and it was in my heart,

0:07:47.942,0:07:51.857
it was in my blood, that I needed to be a musician.

0:07:51.857,0:07:54.196
And the year that I took off

0:07:54.196,0:07:57.233
between New England and getting into Minnesota,

0:07:57.233,0:07:59.436
I did some soul searching and thinking

0:07:59.436,0:08:01.753
I’m going to go off in a different path

0:08:01.753,0:08:03.871
but I just couldn’t do it.

0:08:03.871,0:08:06.445
I had to stay with my music and take that chance

0:08:06.445,0:08:08.473
so I went to Northwestern,

0:08:08.473,0:08:11.024
spent an extra year in Chicago after I graduated

0:08:11.024,0:08:13.226
– freelancing and learning a little bit more

0:08:13.226,0:08:15.562
about the trade of being a professional musician.

0:08:15.562,0:08:19.199
As a freelancer and hitting the audition circuit

0:08:19.199,0:08:22.178
and being a professional musician is

0:08:22.178,0:08:26.639
as Nikole and I have talked about

0:08:26.639,0:08:30.744
is really putting your life on the line

0:08:30.744,0:08:33.780
for what you love to do.

0:08:33.780,0:08:38.651
And I took a chance that I would do this

0:08:38.651,0:08:41.354
because I had to do this.

0:08:41.354,0:08:43.323
I felt that I had to be a musician because

0:08:43.323,0:08:47.761
it was really everything I had done in my life.

0:08:47.761,0:08:50.463
I didn’t want to do anything else.

0:08:50.463,0:08:54.523
As quite a few of my music teachers have told me,

0:08:54.523,0:09:00.507
don’t do music unless you have to.

0:09:00.507,0:09:04.177
And that is kind of a two-sided coin meaning yeah,

0:09:04.177,0:09:06.212
it’s a tough business

0:09:06.212,0:09:08.415
– it’s like being an actor in Hollywood

0:09:08.415,0:09:11.384
where you go to LA and you wait tables

0:09:11.384,0:09:13.686
and you hope for a lucky break.

0:09:13.686,0:09:16.443
And if you’re good, that helps a lot.

0:09:16.443,0:09:19.225
But there’s no guarantees.

0:09:19.225,0:09:22.295
But then again there’s no guarantees in life either.

0:09:22.295,0:09:27.635
There’s some perhaps more...

0:09:27.635,0:09:32.020
how can I put it...

0:09:32.020,0:09:34.862
more ways that are easier

0:09:34.862,0:09:38.278
– that if you follow a prescribed course,

0:09:38.278,0:09:40.947
more than likely you’ll

0:09:40.947,0:09:43.383
get to a place that you’ve tried to get to

0:09:43.383,0:09:47.639
but after I graduated from Northwestern

0:09:47.639,0:09:50.356
and spent that year in Chicago,

0:09:50.356,0:09:54.327
I got my first professional job in a symphony orchestra

0:09:54.327,0:09:56.763
and I knew that I would probably

0:09:56.763,9:59:59.000
have to travel...