Classical Pathways
By Eric Glissmeyer, Cl 89 Program Director

Classical music. Don’t you just love it? At least now. But did you always?

We all have our own story about how we came to like classical music. Mine is a bit odd, perhaps.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and my first love was pop/rock. I had my own transistor radio, and I would spend hours listening to various pop/rock stations in Salt Lake City… KCPX, KRSP, KNAK, and others. In eighth grade, I earned money to buy a stereo—a single unit with turntable, radio, and cassette deck. That gave me FM, which was so much better than AM on my little transistor. And I began to buy my own record collection. The first albums I bought were “Feels So Good” by flugelhorn artist Chuck Mangione, and Chicago’s Greatest Hits. Others followed: Eagles, Kansas, Little River Band, Styx. I loved these bands. At the time I wouldn’t have dreamed of buying any classical music. It seemed so stuffy, and un-cool. So just when did classical music enter the picture? Well, there’s a side story to all of this.

Like many Utah children, I started piano lessons at a very young age. And like many children I struggled with practicing. It just wasn’t much fun for me. One day I saw another child play an instrument I’d never seen before. It had a pretty festive sound. I also enjoyed watching its motion—the unmistakable motion of an accordion—with bellows opening and closing. I remember seeing a cool design on the bellows that stretched wide, and then became narrow again. When I told my mother I wanted to play the accordion, my parents made a deal with me. If I would practice the piano faithfully the following year, I could take accordion lessons.

I held up my end of the bargain, and my parents kept their word. So I started playing the accordion when I was 10. A couple of years later, it was time to upgrade to a bigger and better instrument. My parents swallowed hard and shelled out the dough (in those days we could almost have bought a small car with the money).

I had a great time taking lessons at the Larry Pino Conservatory in Holladay. Larry and the other teachers all wanted to give their students a musical experience that went beyond polkas and waltzes. We were required to learn solo arrangements of classical pieces. I also participated in a large ensemble of accordions in which we actually played movements from symphonies. I played the horn part (on the accordion) in the Brahms First Symphony, the piccolo part in Beethoven’s Fifth, and the clarinet in Beethoven’s Third .

A whole new world opened up to me. I wanted to know how the symphonies sounded when played by a real orchestra, so I bought recordings of the works to play on my new stereo. I listened to them over and over. I can’t say that I completely enjoyed every note right off the bat. The symphonies seemed so long to me, and I remember actually falling asleep a few times while listening. But with repeated hearings, I began to internalize the pieces, and I started to understand the new musical language.

In high school I began to follow other interests. I put the accordion aside, and focused on drama and singing. With my vocal studies came an introduction to opera. That was a real delight to me, because I also enjoyed foreign languages, so it was heavenly to listen to an opera recording and follow along with the libretto.

Through all this time, I continued to listen mostly to pop/rock, but the tide really turned for me when I became a vocal performance major at BYU. I immersed myself in classical music because it was a requirement to listen to lots of orchestral, instrumental, and vocal music. It was also during this time in college that I began to work at Classical 89.

Although I still enjoy some of the pop/rock I grew up with, classical is definitely my favorite type of music. I can’t imagine life without it. It’s also hard to remember that there was a time when it was not my favorite. My pathway to this art form was a bit different than most, perhaps, but I’m so grateful that I received the appropriate nudges in this direction. Who’d have thought that giving a kid an accordion would lead to a career in classical music?

So, what’s your story?