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::MUSIC NEWS::
LE Newsletter - February 2, 2012
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TSO Trumpeter Andrew McCandless Honours Beloved Childhood
Music Teacher
Source:
www.thestar.com - By Trish Crawford
(Jan 31, 2012) At first, Andrew and Danielle McCandless
were calling
their newborn son “little Mr. Jarrett.”
Now the fair-haired toddler is just plain Jarrett, a name
lovingly selected by his parents for the music teacher who
changed
Andrew McCandless’s
life.
McCandless is the
principal trumpet for the
Toronto Symphony Orchestra
and recently soloed in a performance of Haydn’s Trumpet
Concerto.
“He wouldn’t even be here today,” said Danielle, during a family
interview at Roy Thomson Hall. “He would never have followed a
music career without Mr. Jarrett and he probably never would
have left Louisville.”
The story begins in 1980, when 10-year-old McCandless was bused
from his white neighbourhood to the mostly black Iroquois Middle
School in Louisville, Ky., as part of a widespread U.S. program
to mix school populations.
It was an initiative that had begun decades before after the
U.S. Supreme Court
ruled in 1954 that
segregated schools dividing students into black or white
enclaves violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
The case of Brown vs. Board of Education, with its
constitutional guarantee of equality, sparked further demands
for integration and desegregation in all segments of society.
Desegregating schools met with obstacles. In 1957, Arkansas
Governor Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to stop
black students from entering Little Rock High School in 1957.
Governor George Wallace personally blocked a door at the
University of Alabama in 1963 to keep two black students from
enrolling.
Ultimately, school boards resorted to busing students to improve
integration. They abandoned the practice when mixed populations
were achieved.
McCandless didn’t know any black people before Iroquois Middle
School. “It was the luckiest day of my life,” he says today.
The music teacher there was
Robert Jarrett,
65, who recalls the code of conduct tacitly accepted by black
children when he was growing up.
“When we went to a house we were not allowed to go in the front
door. We went in the back,” he says. “When we caught a bus into
town, black people had to sit in the back of the bus. And if all
of the seats were covered, we had to stand until we got to our
destination.”
Jarrett, now retired, doesn’t remember overt acts of
discrimination. He began teaching in Kentucky as soon as he
graduated from Tennessee State University and recalls busing
starting quietly.
When McCandless arrived Iroquois and started playing trumpet,
Jarrett was immediately aware he was teaching a special talent.
“First of all, what drew me to him was that he was a good
trumpet player. He had already developed a natural tone. He had
a natural ability about him.”
Not only did he give McCandless free private lessons; he also
bought him his first good trumpet, a
Bach. When pupil surpassed
the teacher in skill, Jarrett asked the first trumpet in the
Louisville Orchestra to take on the teen as a student.
It was Jarrett’s quiet gift: money was never discussed.
McCandless, whose father was a roofer and mother a homemaker
with four children, says his family wasn’t musical and money for
extra classes was tight.
Jarrett paid $35 for the half-hour lessons and was there for
McCandless every step of his musical growth. He drove him home
from band practice. He persuaded other teachers to let
McCandless make up for unfinished work when music kept him from
class.
“I saw down the line that he would be a professional musician,”
says Jarrett. “I told him and his parents one day he will play
with Doc Severinsen.” And he did.
“I did everything I knew that I could do to help him succeed.
This was one opportunity I had in life to help somebody make it.
I didn’t mind the expense or the time. When you love somebody …”
As he grew up, McCandless became aware of racial tensions. One
day he asked his teacher, “Why are you so nice to me. You’re
black and I’m white. And he answered, ‘I’m Mr. Jarrett and
you’re Andy.’ ”
McCandless chokes up talking about the impact this tolerant,
inclusive teacher had on his life. There have been many visits
over the years and he has flown Jarrett to some of his concerts.
After attending a high school for the performing arts,
McCandless studied music at the
Eastman School of Music in
Rochester, N.Y., and became a professional trumpeter. He played
with numerous orchestras, including those in Kansas City,
Buffalo and San Francisco, before moving to Toronto in 1999.
All this was made possible by the training and support he
received from Jarrett.
“I can’t tell you what he means to me,” McCandless says.
When Danielle was pregnant, she knew right away, if it was a
boy, he would be called Jarrett.
“Mr. Jarrett is a really joyful person,” said Danielle, who
works in a midwifery centre. “His reaction was happiness, but he
was a little overwhelmed.”
“I never thought I would be so important that someone would name
their baby after me,” Jarrett says. |
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::ENTERTAINMENT NEWS WITH A CANADAN TWIST::
