Kathy
He did not choose the violin. Somebody put it in his hands at three and a half, and then stayed for the part where it got hard.
I did not pick the violin. I was three and a half, somebody else decided, and for most of my life the way I told that story was as a joke about not being asked.
Kathy is the teacher on the other end of it. She is a real violinist, not somebody filling an afternoon, and she has been teaching music for more than fifty years. She is still teaching.
The nursing homes
By six I was playing in nursing home common rooms. That is not a credential, it is just where a small kid with a violin gets put.
I have thought about those rooms a lot since. Nobody in them was there to evaluate me. They were there because somebody wheeled them in. What I picked up without noticing is that the playing is not really for the player, and I do not think a stage would have taught me that.
How the lessons actually happened
This part needs David’s words, and Kathy’s own okay before any of it is public. How the lessons came about at all, and what she gave up to keep them going.
Where this one gives
The cause for this page is not chosen yet. David has floated music education, funding lessons for kids whose families cannot pay for them. That would fit her better than anything.