My Musical Career

Many people have asked me over the years how it was that I came to take up the timpani, of all instruments. My answer is always that I was not really by chance as music played a big part in my upbringing. As a matter of fact, you can say that my musical career started in a choir loft of a church in the borough of the Bronx, New York City. My mother was a singer, and endowed with as most beautiful soprano voice. When I came along, she was the soloist and choir director for the church we attended, as well as many other roles such as den leader for the Cub Scouts and Girl Scout leader. My dad loved music, but was not himself musically inclined, but he was also active in the church as Cubmaster for the Church cub scout pack. I think he was also involved in some other church activities, but between them, my parents were very active in the life of the parish. The parish in question was St. Joseph’s R.C. Church,

which was (and is located at 1949 Bathgate Avenue in the Bronx. The parish school was (and is still) located directly across from the church.
All of us kids (and there are five of us) sang in the church choir at one time or other, under my mother’s direction. Just before I was old enough to sing in the choir, my parents took us to see a performance of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Nutcracker” ballet at the City Center. This would have been about 1957 – and I remember the occasion very well. The stage production was gorgeous and I was duly impressed, but the orchestra impressed me far more – particularly the timpanist. I remember his antics even at a remove of fifty-seven years.
At about this time, Leonard Bernstein had charge of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and its Young People’s Concert series. Every season the orchestra would put on a series of these concerts – each concert being built around a certain theme – for example, one concert that aired in March of 1960 was titled “Who is Gustav Mahler?” 1960 was the centenary of Mahler’s birth and the Philharmonic was doing all of the symphonies and it was felt that the Young People’s Concerts should be part of that event, so Leonard Bernstein presented the last movement of Mahler 4th Symphony; the Scherzo from Mahler’s 2nd Symphony and last movement of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde in an hour -long concert which I remember very well.
I was always fascinated by the timpanist of the New York Philharmonic at the time – one Saul Goodman, whose 46 -year tenure was legendary. He played with such professionalism and intensity that I was hooked on the timpani from that day. Every time we turned on the Young People’s Concert, my older brother would always say -“Andrew, here’s Saul Goodman again” whenever they had a good shot of the timpanist.
Here is a link to the YouTube clip of the entire concert. Enjoy!

My Early Musical Training

My musical training started off as member of the church choir, which was a boy’s choir made up of about eighteen or nineteen boys with a healthy infusion of girls from the parish school. The choir sang at Sunday’s High Mass at 11:00 am and at Confirmations, First Communions and at Christmas Midnight Mass and during Holy Week – Holy Thursday and the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. Which was fairly often.
All of us Simco kids sang in the choir at one time or other – including my sister, who was drafted to fill in the ranks. I have great memories of those years – the organist of the church became a close family friend and was my brother’s first organ teacher. I always loved to listen to the organ and watch our organist, Jack Casey play the preludes and postludes and accompany my mother and the choir. He was truly an accomplished accompanist and a sensitive musician. He was the first to tell me about J.S. Bach – and how important his music was. It made me curious about this composer from the Baroque aria who was also an organist, and whom I later learned to revere.
I also had my first piano lessons with a Mrs. Flagella, who lived on the corner across the street from our apartment building. She had a lovely apartment and a beautiful grand piano at which I took my first lessons. Alas, there were not to be to many of these. I believe I had three lessons when they ended abruptly due to her death in a hit-and-run accident. I never really took up the piano until I took some lesson in college as part of a requirement. But on that subject, more later.