The road less traveled

Humble beginnings

I was born October 1,1969 in Toledo, Ohio. My beginnings, I didn't learn about for nearly 38 years. What I know is that my birth mother was the victim of domestic violence the man that beat and tormented her, he also killed my infant brother and spent time in prison. I was an orphan along with two sister and another brother I haven’t met as of the time I am writing this. I was put in foster care in a children’s home in Maumee, Ohio where I was adopted by a family of German Irish descent in Ypsilanti, Michigan at age two. Looking back now I never felt quite a part of the family but more like a project a charity case and I am not sure whether there was resentment amongst my adoptive siblings or they just felt entitled or empowered to sexually abuse me from an early age. The brothers were quite a bit older than me, and the affect that my early childhood traumas caused has ghosted my adult life; even though I have spent nearly thirty years, on and off again, working with one of the best therapists in New York City, William Messina.

My adoptive mother was German and Italian her mother’s ancestors way back were Remus and Romulus the founders of Rome she was an operator with the phone company. My adoptive father was well educated and owned his own contracting company. Jack, owed a bunch of properties: apartment complexes, houses and farms and even having oil wells on some of his properties. He and I never really understood one another, and I think in my teenage years, being the only artist(pianist) in the family, he really didn't know how to relate to me and stopped all efforts in my teenage years . My adoptive mother played the role of mother and father to me. I was on the swim team, an eagle scout and excelled at the piano early on and won a bunch of awards and recognitions for performances given.

I started piano between three and five years old with Marilyn Eller, who was a world-class pianist in her own right and was a consummate master teacher. I started studying counterpoint, composition and piano at sixteen with her husband Daniel R. Eller, who was himself a master performer and professor of piano, first on the east coast at The New England Conservatory of Music, and finally at Eastern Michigan University. He and his wife studied with Igor and Soulima Stravinsky at the University of Illinois back in the fifties. They performed a two pianos and Philharmonic concert with Stravinsky conducting in New York City. I was so blessed to have had them as my original master teachers as they laid the foundation on which my musical life is built.

My early schooling experience was not a happy memory as I was tormented by the kids in school for being different. I was biracial, gay and sensitive and it seemed as though I had a target on my welcoming bullies. My music professors also homeschooled their kids which were also around my age, so my mother pulled me out of the public school and sent me to home school with them. It ended up being the best decision and I don’t regret it for a minute as it afforded me the opportunity to get a full scholarship to the university as well as focus on music full time. I practiced hours and hours a day until my father would say around 11 pm that it was time to go to bed. He nearly had to pull me away from the piano.

The issue is that what I thought was going to be a haven ended up being a nightmare. My piano teachers were Jewish but converts to Christianity through the Pentecostal denomination. They also were members of the John Birch Society and ended up voting for David Duke, the former grandmaster of the Ku Klux Klan when he ran for president. I remember going to Lansing, Michigan and Chicago with the group of them listening to the far-right wing types spouting out hate. It seems ironic that they being Jews and I being bi-racial and gay would be going to these types of gatherings. They said that they didn’t agree with the racial issues but aligned with their America first platform. I don’t know but in my spirit it never sat right with me so after many years I finally said, one Tuesday evening at my music session, that I am sorry but I had to leave and that I could no longer journey with them on this path.

I ended up moving down to Champagne-Urbana, Illinois where I did an independent study with a fantastic musician, John Garvey. Professor Garvey, was one of Eller’s original professors and coaches when he and his wife were students. John was also the viola player for the Walden String Quartet and one of the finest musicians and master teachers on the planet. I was so elated to get away from my adoptive family the little political group and frankly the city I was raised in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Next, I travelled by train at about twenty-two years old to New York City.

I stayed at the YMCA on the upper west side of Manhattan for the first month or so of my stay in New York City. I had saved 2000 dollars and quickly learned how that it was not that much money. Just before I ran out of money, I got a share in an apartment on 14th street and 8th avenue with an artist. The artist was a painter who came home at 4 a.m. in the morning; most night she was drunk and would wake me up and would want a therapist to vent to. That was exhausting and I wrote my friend about it who lived in Champaign- Urbana Illinois and when he responded on a postcard my roommate read the note and as he had mentioned the artist in a not so flattering way she approached me after reading my postcard and well… that was the end of that roommate share on 14th and 8th Avenue in Manhattan.

Next, I simultaneously got a series of waiter jobs at: Tavern on the Green, The Rainbow Room and the Flamingo East and I was introduced to a gentleman’s establishment where young men could meet older patrons and be given money for their time. I really could not stand this way of making money. but it was easy enough on one level and it was quick cash that sustained me while I pursued my music studies. In music, I worked with master teachers named, Peter Serkin, Arthur Balsam, and Lorie Glaze during those early years in York City. .