Where They Went From Here

I will be spending some of this bandwidth on catching up with former members of the KSO and some of their goings-on.

Former Principal cellist Phil Hansen was here just a brief time, 1992-1995, but he remains the only cellist who was a member of the KSO to perform the solo part to Strauss’ Don Quixote with the KSO. After spending some time in the Pacific Northwest, he was appointed principal cellist with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. He recently performed in Vladivostok, Russia in concerts sponsored by Russia’s Bi-lateral Presidential Commission.

Bassist Dave Sickle was here in that same ‘92-‘95 time frame, but left to pursue a medical career at Case Western Reserve University. After a stint with the Army at Fort Bragg, he now lives with his wife Janice, two sons and a daughter in Jackson, Tennessee, where he is an Orthopedic Surgeon with the Jackson Clinic. In his spare time he plays in a 90's alternative band called Skin and Bones. It is an appropriate name, considering the day jobs of the band members. To quote his Facebook description:

We started out with 3 orthopaedic surgeons and a dermatologist. We traded in the skin doc for a cardiologist but the name stuck.

If you remember violist Wendy Mullen from the late 80's to the mid 90's at all, you remember that she was an extremely talented soprano. She left here to pursue a DMA at Arizona State and his now the vocal coordinator and voice professor at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, GA. One of my most treasured experiences in music came in 1992 when she, violinist Sean Claire, pianist Carol Zinavage and I gave the Tennessee premiere of Shostakovich’s song cycle Seven Poems after Alexander Blok on a Knoxville Symphony Chamber Players concert. (A repeat performance at Pellissippi State was snowed out by the blizzard of ‘93). She keeps her viola chops up as a core member of the Macon Symphony Orchestra.

Hmmm, I didn't mean for this to be all about string players. I'll try to hit some of the other families in a later post. Right now, I am fixing to spend a couple days camping at Indian Boundary Lake with my 16-year-old son Richard and 3 of his friends. Wish me luck.