From every corner of the campus come the sounds of music, nature, conversation, and gleeful children. The combination of the dining hall on a hill surrounded by nature as far as the eye can see and extraordinary musicians immersed in the repertoire we all love is an integral part of my father’s, mine, and hopefully my daughters’ sense of beauty, decency, respect, and belonging.
When I look through the photo archives from the earliest years, I see a generation of musicians who in significant numbers had only recently arrived in America. They had all to some extent witnessed and experienced the horror and nightmare of fascism, been uprooted from their homeland, and worse. Much of this shared experience went unspoken, and the reluctance to verbalize instead wove its way into transcendently beautiful performances. It also found an outlet in humor… Every beautiful, smiling, radiant face on those remarkable black-and-white photographs is of a musician who was again safe, free, alive, and an integral part of a welcoming community.
