Getting to know us
Call me what you will; born to be wild, born from a pod, Xena Princess Warrior…whatever. I am ready to take on any moniker that fits at any given time. I knew from early childhood that I wanted to be just like Peter Pan and not grow up. I held it off for a while, but life began to put strictures on me, and I was forced to go to school, college, and then find my way in the world. Thankfully, music was the path I chose because it has given me many of the great gifts of life. My parents were wonderful in that they always encouraged me to do whatever I wanted as far as a career. I taught classroom music for 4 years and then decided to bust out of the chains of that daily routine. I moved from Annapolis to the Washington, D.C. area and sang opera, worked at the Smithsonian Institution, and performed singing telegrams from girls all a twitter at bridal showers to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. It’s at that point that I started having dreams (literally) of going to Europe and exchanging money. Then I had this thought that I could die tomorrow and never have gone. Well, I decided to leave all that fun and frivolity and go to Vienna, Austria to take a 2-month German language course. Well, 2 months ended in seven years. I sang out on the streets of Vienna for the first 2 years and then taught band at the American International School. Love, love, loved it! Everything in the world is a 3-hour flight from Vienna, so I got to really expand my knowledge of the world, which was rather limited. (Shoot, I must go on with my bio. I’m getting caught up in minutiae). So, from Vienna I went to the University of Washington for my Masters Degree in performance, moved to New York City and sang there for a few years, taught voice and vocal diction at Northern Arizona University, and fell in love with a woman who was an administrator at the Museum of Northern Arizona. We moved to the East Bay in California, and I ended up working at Mills College and St. Albert Priory and conducted the Women’s Antique Vocal Ensemble and the Contra Costa Chorale. I am now semi-retired in that I still direct the Contra Costa Chorale and will until they force me to leave. Now, about this trip. The number one thing on my bucket list at this point is going to Europe with Kate. Why? Because we love traveling together, and my biggest wish is to be there when Kate puts her foot on foreign soil for the first time (excluding Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, and the Virgin Islands). Yes, "she who falls from the sky" (she skydived for her 73rd birthday) is one of the worldliest people I know for not having been abroad. This will now change!
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
My first traveling experience was when I was (I think I've been told) a year old and my family traveled from Pennsylvania to Colorado, from whence our parents hailed. Then, at six (I think it was six), we went to Colorado again. And, later, again. And again. We wore a rut between western Pennsylvania and Denver, Colorado. Actually, I only remember one trip where all six of us were in the car together. I pity my parents on that trip, although the photos seem to show some very happy times. So all my early traveling was on that route. And when it was time to go to college, I headed off to … yep, Colorado. By that time my brother and one sister were living in Colorado. From there, when I left college at Boulder, I headed deeper into Colorado to Crested Butte to be a hippy for awhile. Then to Boston, then back to Colorado. See the common theme? At that point I settled into life in Denver … then went back to Boston for love, only to discover that there wasn’t any of that there. Back to Denver, where I ended up working for one of the greatest magazines of all time, the Mountain Gazette (early years), and the Flick Theatre in Larimer Square. That led to one of the most important jobs I ever had, working with the Telluride Film Festival, using up all of my vacation and extra time for 40 years. During the rest of those years, I worked for symphony orchestras and museums, pursuing my passion for the arts. All of this left almost no time for serious traveling, so I managed to get only to Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, and the Virgin Islands. Now, finally, I’m heading out for an international adventure with the love of my life, the woman I met when I worked in Flagstaff at the Museum of Northern Arizona.
