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The beginnings of our journey in the arts breathe through our audition stories. This memory of that special day at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and the Performing Arts proves that. (Usually I deal with only M&A subject matter but I'm sure you'll agree this particular story is exceptional).
Within a few weeks I walked into La Guardia High School of Music & Art along with a few thousand other students scheduled to audition, as well as my older brother Erick, since I was required to have a parent or chaperone with me and my mother was hospitalized.
times before, and the thought of getting up early every morning and traveling alone from the Bronx to do this for the next three years didn’t phase me, I wanted to be here, but the pressure building inside me through walking the hallways of that special place on that morning started to take hold of the feelings of a shy 14 year old.
After some time hearing the amazing voices of other students practicing around me while waiting to display what I considered a joy. I finally got called into a doorway that lead to a small music room with walls covered in acoustic panels, black boards sketched with music notations completing the full harmonic spectrum from the lowest levels of the F Clef all the way up through the highest tones of the G Clef, an upright piano, and two instructors sitting on chairs extremely close to where I was about to be asked to display my joy. I wished for tons of space around me to help remove the claustrophobic feeling of having to sing so close to these two strangers. Fortunately, one of these instructors was the friend my music teacher recommended to hear me perform, and as he explained who he was, the fear slowly dissipated.
They went on to ask me to sing my song. Because I was young and distracted with sports at the time, I never got around to practicing any specific songs throughout the few weeks leading to the audition, but on the spot I chose a beautiful ballad named “So Much In Love” from the album “Street Corner Symphony” recorded by The Persuasions and released in 1971. Street Corner Symphony was an album I played so often on my mother’s record player that I must’ve destroyed it with that needle constantly scraping through the valleys of the most amazing vocal wave forms ever pressed into wax. And fortunately for me, that beautiful song afforded me the space I longed for; transporting me to my joy of singing, yet still a bit nervous that I was singing in front of strangers.
After I finished singing I was given song sheets filled with written notation and asked to sing what I can read. This was that monkey wrench that hits us all when we feel like we’re rolling smooth, but fortunately, though I didn’t truly know how to read music, I was familiar enough with music notation through time in band class with Mr. Bieber that I was able to follow the notes up and down the scale without too much difficulty.
as the instructor had played them. The nervousness built back up as I’d never learned to play the piano, but I was fortunate to be able to remember every finger placement the instructor used when playing the phrases for me to hear. Then I was I was told we were done, and I was sent off with a kind, “Good Luck.”
First audition done. Now to navigate back through the sea of students to my second audition with the Instrumental Music Department. The instrumental music department was a few floors below the vocal music department, down in the basement level of the school. While I walked alone, within thousands of other students through the hallways and down the escalators, I couldn’t help hearing all the conversations about music lessons, performance achievements and plans for purchasing new instruments between these students and their parents who were allowed to be with them through this overwhelming process. And I couldn’t help thinking about the fact that I had no musical lessons outside of band class and time spent with my mom rehearsing songs with our church choir, I had never achieved anything musically apart from being given the opportunity to play the lead in the saxophone section of our small junior high band class and that I had to audition for both the vocal and instrumental music departments because I figured I could always learn to sing, but being accepted into the instrumental music department was the only way I’d ever be able to play an instrument since schools loaned instruments to students and my single mother had no way to afford purchasing any kind of instrument for me, especially something as costly as a saxophone. The day was certainly not done. And the pressure began to build again. Fortunately, there were other nervous students walking alone through these hallways without parents that weren’t afraid to admit their fear. It was as if we were divinely placed together that day in the hallways of this special place in order for us to hold each other up, and after meeting these new friends, I didn’t just want to be here, I needed to be here. Unfortunately, the hallways of the instrumental music department that morning were filled with the sound of extreme musical precision coming from every angle. Every door through this acoustically quiet environment had students waiting in line to show this new set of instructors a reason to be given one of the limited positions in their lineup for the next few years. And every door seemed to swing open just as fast as it closed, causing the acoustically quiet environment to have no effect on the fact that I’d placed myself in a much more vicious musical competition than I could have dreamed possible. I was completely out performed, even though I’d spent the last month practicing a special piece of music with my junior high music teacher, Mr. Bieber. Most everyone around me had just spent the last decade perfecting their skill and it was very apparent that I would never touch a musical instrument in this school. I only hoped that I wasn’t too nervous during my vocal music audition an hour earlier.
“So, what are you playing for us today?” The first words I heard from this new set of instructors almost caused me vertigo. I’d just spent over an hour hearing every kind of classical etude and sonata as well as all kinds jazz riffs and ballads blaring through these new hallways. Embarrassment is a description that wouldn’t dare to come close to my feelings at that moment. “The Love Theme from the Superman movie.” Since I started practicing this piece a month earlier I’d fallen in love with it’s melodic character and worked very diligently to breath it’s gentle notes with as much emotion as I could express, but my nerves were so shattered that I couldn’t even get out the first note. “It’s ok. Take a moment and when you’re ready you can start over.” The patience from my new panel of instructors was very calming, but my nerves could not be mended, and I performed the worst rendition of this piece of music that I ever had the whole month I spent learning it. I was done, but the audition was not, and I went on to performing all of the same kind of repetitive phrases asked of me during the vocal department audition, with the inclusion of percussive phrasing and the exception that I was to play on the saxophone various pieces of sheet music instead of singing them vocally. With my horrible performance of a comparatively simple piece of music than what most other students meticulously leveled out before me and the fact that I could barely play a complete sheet of notation placed before me, I was done.
After a few weeks the school year was coming to an end and my mother was transferred to the ICU at Lincoln Hospital up in the Bronx. The thought of the auditions had passed and my only concern was the time I had to visit my mother. Then I received the letter. The thought of becoming a musician had been a dream of mine since the age of 3. Listening to my mother sing around the house and at church made a huge impact on me. The reality of learning music could only come through public school since my mother just couldn’t afford lessons of any kind. Even years earlier before my parents divorced, when they asked me what I wanted for my fifth birthday and I told them I wanted to learn how to play piano, and after a couple days of running around with my father to find affordable lesson but having no luck, only to see him wiping tears from his eyes before he apologized and told me we couldn’t get piano lessons. The idea of learning music was certainly a dream.
I opened the letter and quietly read it. It mentioned that I had a choice to make. I was to chose whether I was to accept an invitation to enroll into the vocal music department or to accept an invitation to enroll into the instrumental music department. I was shocked and had to read the letter a couple times over. Then I went to Lincoln Hospital and read it to my mother. Of course, she was always the most encouraging and when I asked what she thought, she said to chose whichever was the one I loved most. I wanted to learn to sing, but I chose to enroll into the instrumental music department because I loved her the most. And I wasn’t about to make a choice that would cause her to have to struggle to give me any more than she already had given.
Four months later, I started my first year in high school as a sophomore learning Bassoon, quickly gaining the position of first seat in our class orchestra, learning to play some of the most beautiful music I’d ever heard. My brother Erick became my legal guardian, and my mother had spent her first two months in her eternal home with her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art became and has been since, one of the biggest blessings I could ever receive. I loved my time there as a student, and I cherish the memories I’ll hold onto until I meet my mother again when I truly am done. 
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