Ari Goldman - The Late Starters Orchestra

Perhaps my parents were unable to give me these things because they were so consumed by their own hard times. They divorced but they had no game plan after that. Neither of them could handle three young boys alone so we spent our childhoods shuttling between their homes and the homes of aunts and uncles and grandparents. Even if someone had put an instrument in my hands, I suspect it would have been for naught. All of the elements that Shinichi Suzuki insisted on were absent: consistency, practice, discipline, support, and environment.

As an adult, I was trying to give my child everything I missed. Perhaps the cello was just a symbol. Was all this healthy? Was I simply displacing my own needs? Was I projecting onto Judah my own unfinished business with my parents? Was I trying to live through my child? Was I trying to make my dreams his dreams? Was I being entirely selfish?

Not entirely, I thought, because there was one other element in play here: guilt. In some ways I had let my older children down by not always being there for them musically. Shira and I made sure they had exposure to music and instruments but I never became their Music Dad.

The reasons for that were understandable. The years when Adam and Emma were six, I was a daily newspaper reporter, a job that often took me away from home and away from the family. At those times I was working at the Times Square newsroom and I worked what I like to call 24/6. (I am a Sabbath observer so I usually managed to take off on the seventh day.) I was building a journalism career, and that meant regularly missing family dinners and, when I was at dinner, taking calls then and at all hours. Taking calls in the 1980s meant something quite different than it does today when cell phones and laptops are ubiquitous.

On a good day in the eighties, I would meet my deadline, leave the office at six, get on a train to our house in suburban New Rochelle, and be home by seven. From six to seven I was what we called “out of pocket,” meaning that if my editors had any questions, they couldn’t reach me until I walked into the house. Shira’s first words when I walked through the door were often “call the office.” Sometimes I would manage to begin dinner with the family (who had waited my arrival) and then the phone would ring. And if the editor had a question, he just couldn’t shoot over the copy onto my laptop. He’d have to read the changes to me word for word. Meanwhile, I would be signaling to Shira and the kids to go ahead without me.

Still, I loved my work. I almost never turned down an assignment. I wrote about murders and robberies and train crashes and other catastrophes. I covered politicians and celebrities and wrote obituaries and book reviews. And I traveled around the country and around the world, including a monthlong stint in southern Africa. And I started my first book during a two-week vacation (during which Shira took the kids to Boston) and finished it on a series of Sundays (when, again, Shira was with the kids). During those years I left the bulk of parenting to Shira. She threw herself into the task with passion, creativity, and joy. Although we lived in the suburbs, Shira did a whole lot more than open the back door and tell the kids to play in the yard. She took them to the storytelling hour at the local public library and then led them through the stacks to pick out books for reading at home. She took them to state parks and fine art museums and gave them each a sketch pad to draw what they saw. She entered contests on radio stations and won free tickets to amusement parks and the circus. And Shira was the Music Mom during those years, taking Adam and Emma for lessons with a wonderful woman named Rosalyn Tobey, who gave them piano lessons in her home studio surrounded by the paintings of her husband, the muralist and painter Alton Tobey.

I was not part of these adventures and often felt left out. I couldn’t wait to get back at night to hear about them. I remember coming home to find Shira reading The Velveteen Rabbit or Charlotte’s Web or Where the Wild Things Are to Adam and Emma. All three were curled up on the couch, the kids in footsie pajamas, their hair still wet from the bath. They’d look up at me as if to say, “Who’s that? Why’s he breaking the magic spell?”

By the time Judah was born in 1995, however, my life had changed radically. We had given up our suburban home and moved to Manhattan. Instead of a life of parenting and freelance writing, Shira took a full-time job, first as a publicist and writer, and then as the head of her own public relations and marketing firm. As her professional life became busier and more demanding, mine became more manageable. I quit the newspaper business and, by the time Judah was turning six, I was a tenured professor at Columbia. I had responsibilities, of course: classes to teach, papers to evaluate, faculty meetings to attend, and my own research pursuits. But as a professor I also had summers off. And long holiday weekends. And five weeks off between the fall and spring semester. I had what inspirational speakers might call “the gift of time.” I decided to make Judah’s music education my project.

I HAD BIG DREAMS for Judah. After his lessons with Laura, I would walk her to the front door of our apartment, hand her a check, and set a time for the next lesson. I was so thrilled with the progress she was making with Judah that I was giving her spontaneous raises. She started at sixty dollars an hour, but after a few months I told her she was underselling herself and I gave her seventy. Then I started giving her eighty.

One day, while seeing her out, I had to ask. “So Laura, how good is Judah?”

“He’s good. He’s real good,” she told me. “And he loves it so.”

“I marvel at the way you encourage him. The support. The cheers. The standing ovations.”

“That’s all part of my method,” she said with a smile.

“Of course, but, Laura, do you think Judah could be a professional cellist? I mean, do you think he could get into a conservatory? Maybe make a career out of this?”

Laura looked at me oddly. She was kind of sizing me up like she did the first time we met on Broadway. “Ari,” she said patiently and kindly as if she had had this conversation with eager Music Dads before, “he’s a boy; a talented boy, but still a boy. Give it time. Now, make sure he practices tonight.”

Judah’s musical life was divided between the school year, when he took lessons with Laura, and the summer, when he’d go to music camp. He attended a Jewish primary school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, where his day was already chock-full of subjects. He took all of his regular classes — math, science, social studies, English, gym, and art — plus a heavy complement of religious studies, including Bible, Talmud, and Hebrew. Jewish Day Schools do a lot of things well, but music isn’t one of them. While there was some music instruction and a lot of singing, the school did not offer orchestra opportunities like many public and private schools. There was no room full of instruments that kids could try out. The few kids who had serious music instruction were learning with private teachers.

This made Judah and his cello rather exotic in the school. Even in third and fourth grades, Judah was known in school as “the cellist.” And, frankly, he loved to flaunt it. He’d carry it to school assemblies with pride.

Still, being the only cellist at his school wasn’t ideal for Judah’s musical education. He needed to play with others. When he was in sixth grade, the mother of a young violinist in his school told us about an organization called the InterSchool Orchestras, which ran seven performing musical groups in New York City. Judah auditioned for ISO’s youngest group, known as the Morningside Orchestra, and was given a seat in the cello section. Unlike me, auditions, rehearsals, or playing in public did not faze him. He was a natural.