1. It helps to have the dominant parent be a violin player or enthusiast.
2. In India at Umalla in the early 1940's I would listen to my Dad play his violin after supper in out living room after his work day was done. Sometimes I would fetch a coat hanger and pretend to play along.
3 When I was six years old and at Landour/Mussoorie India, my father bought my first violin from a shop in the local bazaar, cut a bridge for it, tuned it and gave it to me saying, "See if you can pluck Twinkle Star on it. (I had chicken pox). Sat up on the edge of the bunk bed and worked about an hour trying to pluck out the tune. Finally, made a recognizable facsimile and he was impressed that I would stick to it that long at that age. He bought a bow. We returned to Umalla and shortly moved to Anklesvar. Dad began teaching me short rote tunes and then slipped over to written tunes that he created on staff paper he drew. Before we left India I was playing Kalliwoda and the first Pleyel duets under his guidance. In our mission were two teens;Dick Bollinger, and Margaret Brooks who were studying violin and playing quite well. Dad took me to a concert of the Bombay symphony whose concert master was Mela Mehta, father of famous conductor Zubin Mehta. Mehla was on the Gripsholm boat with us as we returned to America in the July crossing of 1945. My father had several conversations with him.
3. In America in Salem, Virginia my father arranged for me to have lessons with a Mrs. Spruhan, wife of the Roanoke College football coach. I think I began moving up to third position Kayser etudes. I was required to practice 45 minutes a day after school and before I walked over to my uncle Cline's farm to milk our cow. My uncle Joe, a doctor, bought a fine hand cranked victrola (record player of 78 rpm vinyl records) one album was "Rusty in Orchestraville) and the other was Michael Rabin's Paganini Concerto in D major. Was mightily impressed with the flying staccatto and left hand pizzicato this young Jewish violinist could do. Dad and I may have advanced to the second album of Pleyel duets. I was beginning to be unimpressed with my progress and my sound. A larger 3/4 size factory made cheap violin was not much motivation.
4. We returned to India, I was eleven years old, it was 1948. Our school years were out of synch. In March of 1949 our family were on vacation again in Landour and I began school at Woodstock school, a famous missionary school in the Himalayan foothills. The school had an orchestra and a jazz band. My violin teacher was a Goanese violinist, Mr Denarona. I began weekly lessons in the Kreutzer etudes. Think I moved up to a full sized violin, perhaps my father' s. I played in the second violin section and we played weekly for assembly. We rehearsed at least once each week after school. Judy Schiller a senior was our concert master. She was quite accomplished and I remembered her rendition of Jalousie by Gade to this day . Even though he was a thousand miles away, my Dad must have gleaned I was losing interest in violin and connived with the school authorities to have me take lessons from Judie. She was an inspiration . Think she improved my vibrato and taught me the wrist flip that makes for a very smooth turnaround for legato bowing. I started lessons with her probably my 2nd year at the school. The third year Dick Bollinger returned to teach at Woodstock and direct the instrumental music program. I was instructed to call him Mr. Bollinger, not Dick. After all he was about 10 years older.
In mid semester we moved back to Salem as my father's heart was failing fast. We lived at the Kinzie home place and shortly my father placed me with the concert master of the newly formed Roanoke Symphony. Here is where the plot takes a great positive turn....
Carl Jaspan a French Canadian was a passionate violinist who knew how to inspire and teach. He quickly showed me that with his approach I could really grow. Once I was convinced of that my enthusiasm really grew. Next he invited me to play in the Symphony! A school mate, Douglas Vaughan, a much better player than I sat ahead of me in the 2nd violin sectio. There were at least 3 teen agers. I was first cowed by the complexity of the music, but after Carl showed me how to use a metronome I was able to keep up . The music took up residence in my head and became an obsession. I played the first concert which was on the stage of Jefferson High School in Roanoke. If memory serves, the music included the New World Symphony and the Carmen Suite. Our conductor was Gibson Morrisey. The first cellist was Clyde MacDonald, Roger Taylor was a violist, and a Mr Griffey was a violinist. These four were hired to be section heads with regular jobs as string teachers in the city schools.They were also supposed to form a string quartet, but were unable to agree.
5. Then the downward curve. We moved to Mathias, WV. where my father became the pastor of a circuit of 3 Church of the Brethren congregations. I was in the 11th grade and our class of 1955 had not many more than a dozen students! I was surely the oddball. My father arranged for lessons with Prof Edgar Anderson at Madison College. We made weekly trips there for lessons, while he shopped for groceries. I also with him and later with my brother John a trumpet player played in the Bridgewater College pit orchestra performed the Christmas portion of Handel's " Messiah". Dr. Anderson was not the passionate teacher Carl was. He remarked once "That my former teacher probably romanticized violin playing too much" To an maturing adolescent this wasn't very encouraging. At least twice I was invited to return to play in the symphony which I did. I was provided a hotel room and a small check. I got there by bus and thumbing for rides.
In my senior year it was discovered that my grades didn't allow me to attend Bridgewater, but that Shenandoah College and Conservatory were eager to add an experienced violinist to their Conservatory section, give me a $200 scholarship and help me find nearby part time work. I became a student there, and worked at Lottie Thomas's House and Home bakery within walking distance of the campus. I played in their orchestra and sang in the Conservatory choir. After a few months I discovered the Dayton Church of the Brethren up the street from the bakery.
While at the bakery I met my future wife to be who also worked after school there. I think it was she who encouraged me to visit Dayton CoB on Sundays. I began attending there, joined the choir and except for a very few occasions just lived in the dorms, ate meals at Lottie's and only interacted with classmates between classes. One afternoon maybe on a choir day at the Brethren church I asked Lib Flory to walk her home from choir as I didn't have a car. She answered that her brother in law who lived next house down on the road drove her home. He was a good tenor in the choir. She went home and told her mother who advised her to walk back to the bakery with enough money to buy a dozen donuts and " tell Bill Kinzie he can walk you home". That was in the Fall of 1955. We continued to see each other and married after Christmas the next year in 1956. I remember doing a lot of painting floors of the college and other sort of janitorial work. I also was offered a part time janitorial work at the new Turner Ashby HS. I became more active in the youth groups with Lib in the Church of the Brethren. The second year at Shenandoah was a tough one, especially the second year theory class!
6. I graduated in 1960 from Bridgewater College, taught two years of 6th grade classes and decided to go for a Master's degree at JMU. I was accepted and received my degree in 1963. Taught a year or so in Lynchburg where I reconnected with Roger Taylor from Roanoke who was now teaching in Lynchburg. He suggested I rejoin the Symphony which I did. This was another coincidence that continued my journey!
7. In the Fall of 1964 a string teaching position providentially opened in the Roanoke City schools. I was made aware of it and applied. I was accepted and began teaching at Patrick Henry HS in November 1964. Our daughter, Lisa was born on January 2, 1965. Because I had also directed a Presbyterian church choir while working on my advanced degree I was also able to parlay that into a part time position at Covenant Presbyterian in Roanoke.
8. My classes were good. We added Cathy to our family and life was progressing.. I joined NEA, MENC, and ASTA. Became known among string teachers of Virginia, became part of the faculty of Virginia Music Camp and also a few summers at the Roanoke Youth Symphony camp. Around 1970's I also played in the summer institute for aspiring conductors at Orkney Springs, Va. sponsored by the American Symphony Orchestra League and the State of Virginia. I did this for about ten summers. Their master conductor/teacher was Dr. Richard Lert, Brahms was his godfather. He was in his 80's when I learned to know him. I learned much about conducting second hand, and developed a keen interest in quartet music.
9. Gibson Morrisey died and Dr. Jack Moelencamp became our next conductor. After several years we hired Dr. Victoria Bond one of the pioneer women conductors. She stayed with us about ten years and the symphony thrived. Computers became available to the average person and a new superintendent of school s decreed that our city schools must integrate computer instruction into the curriculum. String instruction took a hit and we hung on by the thinnest string. Victoria left us and the search committee next hired a charismatic conductor, Dr. David Wiley.
10. Around this time in the 1990's I encountered another opportunity to perform.A pianist from Hollins College invited me to play a gig at the Greenbrier Resort Hotel. Though not fully prepared I accepted and enjoyed the experience. A little later he invited me again and I was more comfortable. It occurred to me that I was repeating the orchestral repertoire and it was stressful and wasn't paying for the effort. I made the decision to drop the symphony. Gigs at the Greenbrier increased and then my Hollins pianist stopped going. I had to find a reliable accompanist.... and a new musical collaborator appeared on the scene. She was Camille Carothers.
Camille was a very fine, recently divorced pianist who had arrived in the Roanoke area as she had an older sister who lived here. She made a living by playing at a local eatery and maybe teaching some piano. We both attended First Baptist and someone suggested I ask her if she was interested. I asked and she was. Thus began a decade long collaboration where she parlayed her skills into being one of the Greenbrier's main pianists. During this time I also had a string quartet that played for Greenbrier weddings and weddings at the Homestead and the Roanoke area. After I retired from teaching in the city schools, I began to feel the first debilitating effects of age, a tingling in my feet as if they were going sleep. I had introduced Camille to Jim Glazebrook, the concertmaster of the Roanoke Symphony and conductor of the Virginia Tech symphony and Roanoke Youth Symphony. She asked him whether he would like to play a gig with her at the Greenbrier and he did. Long story short they married and she had a built in violinist. When he couldn't she would call me until it was impossible for me to physically stand and do the gig.
11. Our family moved to Richmond area and Midlothian. I fortunately was able to have two hip replacements and through previous connections joined the Richmond Philharmonic, a large and competent community symphony. Not long after, I was invited to fill in at a local string quartet largely from the symphony which morphed into a regular meeting where I played 2nd violin. I was in violin heaven. Then our cellist had a stroke and later died. I thought our quartet was over, then at a music store I was complaining about not having cellist and the owner introduced me to a lady who was a clarinetist, Sheryl Smith, switching over to cello who was looking for a quartet. Isn't that luck or Providence!? Then our 1st violinist had a debilitating accident and for several years I was the first violinist. Then our 2nd violinist dropped out and Andy Certner became our 1 st violinist. He had an enormous collection of quartet and other string configurations and I enjoyed another five years of music making. Then Covid came and for a year and a half we pretty much stopped quarteting,
12. CODA: In the Fall of 2022 my eyesight began to worsen due to glaucoma. One Thursday after a delightful session I told the group that I could no longer be their 2nd violinist because of my failing eyesight and other health considerations affecting Lib and I. I wanted to add this to my blog to show other aspiring violinists the steps that allowed me to make a delightful living as violin teacher, orchestra violinist, hotel violinist, and quartet musician. I can't vouch for the absolute accuracy of dates (they are relatively close). The sequence and people in the narrative are much more accurate.
P
