Music started with piano lessons. During the summer between fourth and fifth grade, I joined a summer band and learned to play a baritone. During the academic year, I played in school bands in Montrose. I also learned to play a trombone and became a member of a jazz band consisting of two trombones, piano, drums, and acoustic bass. I led the marching band as the drum major. Other activities included two years at summer band camp at Western State College (now Western Colorado University) in Gunnison and band camp one summer at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
As a freshman at Colorado State College (now the University of Northern Colorado) in Greeley I tried out for Choral-Aires, an elite 32-member ensemble under the direction of Claude Schmidt that had done a USO tour of Japan the year before. To my complete surprise, I made the cut and sang in the group for the next two years. I also played baritone in the band and did a solo recital my sophomore year, performing the Hindemith Sonata for Trombone (on baritone).
My life did a 180-degree turnaround after my sophomore year. There was a chance for a second USO tour. There was a downside. Funding was only available for 16 singers. A secret ballot determined the lucky 16. As you might suspect, the 16 consisted mainly of juniors and seniors. As it turned out, I had intended to get a double major in music and mathematics. My music scholarship required a lot of one-credit music courses and left little or no room for mathematics. I did manage to take calculus during my sophomore year. Carol was just finishing her first year as a mathematics graduate student at New Mexico State University. She said that the National Science Foundation had just funded a summer program for high school mathematics teachers and she thought that I would enjoy some of the course offerings. (This was 1960 and there was a huge response to Sputnik.) I changed my major from music to mathematics, transferred to NMSU, and never looked back.
Carol had made some good connections with the music department at NMSU and she helped me to get a music scholarship. I played in the marching band and also joined a jazz band, which included a trip to a national collegiate jazz competition at the University of Notre Dame. During my junior year, I talked with a member of the travelling Chicago Little Symphony who was a faculty member that I knew from CSC. My first summer in Las Cruces was a shock living in a dorm with no air conditioning and overnight lows of 80 degrees. He said that he would be directing the band the next summer at CSC, and offered me a scholarship with a promise that I could play a baritone solo with the summer band. I accepted the offer, took a year of German, and sang tenor as Vasheck in The Bartered Bride. By this time Choral-Aires had been disbanded and Claude Schmidt had been reduced to giving private lessons and leading the summer opera.
My next real experience with music was after getting my PhD in mathematics and accepting a job offer at Colorado State University. Linda and I were welcomed to Fort Collins by UNC friends who had sung in Chorale-Aires. I sang in Music Man as a member of the barbershop quartet. Later I sang in small groups, one year in the Larimer Chorale, several years in the Fort Collins Chamber Chorale under the direction of Ed Anderson, and the Euphany Singers under the direction of Glenn Schull. Here we are at a summer concert at the city park.
