“(Music) is one of the things that always gets cut when schools face (financial) difficulties. When I was in school, we had instruments and uniforms and we had great budgets and we took trips and now it's wham! Everything is gone.”
“It's a nice idea around which to program a lot of different music. Using that as a theme was a good way to build an eclectic concert - anything connected with dance. It's shorter, lighter, different types of music. And we have a couple of surprises, too.”
“One of the other things I like about the April program is it gives me a chance to talk some to the audience. In researching this, I found some interesting connections between these pieces. During the time ragtime was popular, it was a world-wide craze. Brahms wrote some, and so did Stravinsky. In fact, the last thing Stravinsky wrote before 'A Soldier's Tale' was a ragtime piece, and that helps explain the quirky style of that piece.”
“April is one of those months where everyone is involved in 10 different things. There isn't a day that goes by that someone isn't having some kind of recital. Work in the end of the school year and the (Easter) holiday, and it's very busy.”
