BECKY MYERS

ICS Member Spotlight: January/February TUTTI CELLI Newsletter

It is hard to believe I have been playing the cello for 20 years. It seems like only yesterday I was coming home from school asking my parents if I could take cello lessons. I had already been playing the clarinet for two years when this occurred! Little did I know that I would be taking up a hobby that would be with me through my adult life!

By the time I graduated from high school I could play the cello, clarinet, bass and alto clarinet, and the bassoon. Music helped me see the world in those days. I went to Scotland playing the cello, Europe playing the bassoon, and Bermuda playing the bass clarinet. I marched during half time at a Baltimore Colts game!

I chose to make music my avocation and at York College of Pennsylvania I studied for a degree in Medical Technology. Jan Nemshick, the woman who introduced me to the cello at Dallastown Middle School, and principal cellist for the York Symphony Orchestra, was on the adjunct music faculty at YCP, so I was able to continue my studies with her for credit. I also played in the college orchestra for credit. My sophomore year in college, I successfully auditioned for the York Symphony Orchestra, the start of my eight year career with them.

My first year with the YSO was quite exciting as we were auditioning candidates for a new conductor. My choice won, and Dr. Robert Hart Baker became the conductor of the York Symphony Orchestra. We could not ask for a better conductor, and I always enjoyed working with him. One of the highlights of my career with the YSO was performing in a Pops concert with Shirley Jones. What a wonderful woman! I got her autograph and she liked the sweatshirt I was wearing!

The 1989 - 90 season proved to be my last with the York Symphony Orchestra. In May of 1990 I married and moved to Loveland, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. My mother asked me what bothered me the most about leaving York, was it leaving my family, my friends, my job? No, I replied, it's leaving the symphony. You can visit friends and family, get a new job, but I had no idea what the music scene was in Cincinnati.

I didn't play for a year and a half with the demands of a new husband, new home, and new job. Gradually I gained information on local community orchestras. My strength and sound had deteriorated over the past year and a half, but I was determined to continue on! Now, I play with the Cincinnati Community Orchestra as well as the Hamilton-Fairfield Symphony Orchestra. I've performed in a string quartet and substituted in a few other orchestras. Eight of us worked up and performed Villa- Lobos' Bachianas Brasileras No. 1. Now, I have to turn down opportunities to play!

In April of this year I lost my job of nearly five years at a local hospital laboratory. It was an unexpected blow. But as my fellow cellists and other musician friends rallied around me I was reminded that music has always been there, like a friend, through thick and thin. I've had times that I wanted to sever the relationship, times I felt it didn't want me, but it has always come through when it was important.