Darin Brunstad grew up in Westport, and graduated from Staples High School in 1985. He and his husband David are raising 4 children in upstate Connecticut. Darin writes:
Whitely, Lipson, Weigle: Westport music teachers who saved me.
I think of them often these days, as my own young kids wend their ways through public school music education: choir, sax, clarinet and trumpet.
I started out labeled “gifted” — an early program which sent us to help classmates learn skills we had already mastered.
I liked helping. But by 3rd grade my life settled into the reality of a bad check- writing, alcoholic, unemployed stepfather; a clinically depressed grandmother caretaker, and a mother who was gone 12 hours a day beating her head bloody against the glass ceiling on Madison Avenue.
I changed elementary schools 6 times (including Kings Highway, Saugatuck, Coleytown and Burr Farms). Each was a progression of barely tolerable experiences, save the last one, which was more “Lord of the Flies” than anything else.
Burr Farms was one of Darin Brunstad’s several elementary schools. (Computer image by Steve Katz)
I was chubby, dirty and unkempt. I combed my hair and saw fleas stuck between the teeth. I was afraid of bathrooms because of The Terrible Thing that happened in one. So much shame and fear to keep locked away.
I also had more concussions than a child is supposed to have. (Shoutout to the Assumption kids — that was me who starred the windshield when my Grandma hit your school bus head on).
This probably fried my brain a bit. But I think most of my academic apocalypse had to do with being the new kid too many times.
Mrs. Whitely was the music teacher at my last elementary school. She had long gray hair she wore up, and glasses on a chain. I don’t think I ever saw her smile.
She was mocked and derided by students, yet somehow managed to expose us to such amazing things: outdoor winter concerts, fiery depictions of “Night on Bald Mountain,” barbershop quartets. She pulled off an excellent performance of “Solomon Grundy,” with the composer in attendance.
My first time on stage singing in her choir, watching her hands guide us along with such intensity, changed me.
The rest of the world disappeared. There was only that moment of creation — something I didn’t quite understand yet, but enjoyed immensely.
I was a boy soprano who could sing higher than any girl. Taunts of “faggot,” plus recess bullying, made me quit. I withdrew further, and spent recess volunteering in the cafeteria.
Three years of a music desert followed, as things got worse both at home and school. Even my main tormentor started feeling sorry for me, knitting his brows and saying, “Are you depressed? You seem depressed!”
By Long Lots Junior High I was too skinny, and desperately tried to make my increasingly tall and lanky body fold into itself to remain completely unnoticed.
But into a cramped basement music room with arena seating, all the way in the dark back corner of our school, came Alice Lipson. She was petite, and had hair all the way down to her waist.
Alice Lipson (Photo/Lynn Untermeyer Miller)
She tried diligently to teach us heathens about music theory, using Mozart’s “Symphony #40 in G Minor” to illustrate codas, themes and whatnot. There were even handouts. None of that made much sense to me, but the music — the music — grabbed at me.
Mrs. Lipson corralled a gaggle of reluctant 9th graders, and built an immense choir with an ambitious repertoire.
We were rowdy and disobedient, but somehow she coaxed amazing sound out of us. Some teachers in the audience at our concert actually cried. This thing we were doing not only centered me in my chaotic world, but it could affect others too?
By 10th grade at Staples I was fiercely hiding in the closet, and numbing myself regularly with alcohol. I skipped school, lied a lot, and barely passed anything.
Darin Brunstad, sophomore year.
But high school brought George Weigle — an exacting and immensely gifted choir director.
We sang double choir magnificats, spirituals, and put on huge holiday productions. We sang in Latin, Hebrew, German. The professionalism he required of us made us capable musicians, and better people.
Dr. Weigle was nearing the end of his career. He had little patience for nonsense, and famously less for “mediocrity.”
Dr. George Weigle (Photo/Lynn Untermeyer Miller)
But you’d be wrong to mistake his constant look of intensity and focus as a scowl, even as he looked down at us over his glasses.
In December of sophomore year I came to school late, after a young man I knew took his life. I had spent the previous night trying my best to comfort his mother, and had helped clean up the mess so she wouldn’t have to see it when she returned from the hospital.
I wandered into his choir room and just stood there, still in shock. George Weigle quietly dismissed the 108-voice group and led me into his office. I think he talked to me for an hour.
1984-85 Orphenians.
More than anyone, George Weigle taught me the beauty of that intense moment of silence, after the conductor makes eye contact and right before he raises his baton.
Discipline, focus, intention. Then the sharp intake of breath as he raises it up.
What happens after is always a blur to me. After hours of rehearsals I get lost in the music, barely remembering anything before the final sweeping cutoff motion.
Lost in a beautiful way, though. I just go somewhere else. Somewhere happy.
Darin Brunstad’s senior portrait …
What would I have had if I hadn’t been given this gift of music by these teachers? What would have become of me? Yet my love of music endures, and is integral to my mental health. I can’t imagine life without it.
My husband and I adopted our kids from foster care later in life. l’ve witnessed how music smooths the rough places for them, but those will be their own stories to tell someday.
,,, and today, with a flower he found on the sidewalk.
So to all the beloved music teachers: If you see a kid who is struggling, music may be the answer. Maybe there’s a kid who acts out because they can’t read music and is embarrassed. That was me.
Don’t give up on them. Everything you do is important. It can even be life-saving. Every beginning squeak, scratchy string or flat note can lead to something profound and permanent.
Thank you Mrs. Whitely, Mrs. Lipson, and Dr. Weigle.
George Weigle conducts the 1984 Candlelight concert production number. Darin Brunstad is in the center; he played the father in “Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus.”
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Thanks, Darin, for your important and courageous post, and for your pubic recognition of three wonderful people who, as teachers, were acting in loco parentis, as all teachers should…especially when parenting fails at home.
Thanks for the authentic history. So much for us all to absorb and be aware of.
Awww, Darin…I miss you, my friend 🙂 Thank you for this lovely and honest piece.
Glad we are able to reconnect, Dorrie.
What a heartbreakingly beautiful story with a lovely ending, Darin. George Weigle’s choir room in the Four Building (am I right that about the number?) was my refuge during high school. It was the place I felt most alive and safe. When he lifted his baton and the music began coming out of us, the world disappeared.
Prill, I think there are many kindred spirits like us who found safety in the Four Building. Because of people like George Weigle, we also got to experience what it felt like to create something beautiful together. When I try to imagine all the ripples extending out from that place, or any other like it, it’s difficult to grasp.
As a performing Arts Teacher and School Owner in Westport this warms my heart. I have may students in my school with similar stories. I can’t tell you how many of them say that the performing arts saved their lives. So happy you wrote this!
Thank you for such a poignant essay. Your teachers are not the only ones crying. I am always in awe by what the music teachers accomplish with even the youngest of students.
Darin, thank you for sharing your awful, beautiful story. Not in the same way, but I’ve been saved by teachers too. Bless you, your husband and your children.
Darin, thank you for this heartfelt tribute to the music staff in Westport. Several years ago I believe I received a message from you about our studying the Mozart Symphony in G Minor at Long Lots. If I recall correctly, you were singing with a Choir on the West Coast? My years of teaching music at Long Lots and Staples were filled with rewarding experiences sharing a mutual passion for the power of music to fill our souls.
Sending my best wishes to you and your family.
By the way , it was Dolores Vecchiarelli (LLJH Math teacher) who always cried when she heard the chorus sing.🎶🥰
Alice – Yes, I did get to do Haydn’s Creation a while back. Sadly, younger kiddos and a non-traditional work schedule preclude me from regular participation nowadays. I miss it. Terribly.
Still, whenever I hear the Mozart piece, I am instantly sitting on the upper level center in the back of your classroom, and you are down to the left standing next to the piano.
Back in CT now, and I gladly take Dolores Vechiarrelli’s torch and carry it to each of my kids’ concerts, then. Yes, that’s me who’s forgotten his tissue and is trying to inconspicuously wipe his eyes on his shirt.
And in all honesty, seeing the importance of music in my kids’ lives has made me extra appreciative of the arts, and especially of the TEACHERS who open those doors for them. For me that was you and your colleagues. THANK YOU
Tenderly written ode to your great Westport teachers, and nice pictures.
I can recall music teacher Ms Muller, from Bedford Jr High, explaining Lucy in the ‘Sky with Diamonds’, and introducing Phillip Glass. And Patricia Farmer, at the Original Saugatuck Elementary school. Though she taught many youngsters to sing well, probably regretted allowing me to solo in the ‘Tall Trees’.
– Staples Class of 1985
Darin, Thank you so much for sharing your story. I’m sorry for the pain you endured, and very happy and moved to read of your profound appreciation of the counterpart to the pain and what you found in the music part of school and your life. I imagine that you have positively touched many lives in an important way yourself, as you have today.
And, yes, yes, to honoring the music teachers (and all the invaluable teachers who help us find a way for ourselves in life). I add our family’s thanks to elementary school music teachers Suzanne Propp and Ellen Hardy for their outstanding lasting influences. Mary Ann Hall and Amory Merriman before that, and more afterward. We are very grateful.
Loving good wishes to you and your family!
What a beautiful and, at times, heartbreaking story. So glad you had teachers, Darin, who helped light your way through the darkness. That is what our educators should be and I too have been blessed to have had a few (although not music teachers in my case). So happy that you have built a beautiful life with your husband and children. Wishing you all the best as you continue to appreciate music and its place in your life.
That is just remarkable and gracious. I have three boys of my own, and music—particularly Staples Music—is at the core of everything they do, and it has followed them to college as well.
My mother used to choreograph the choir production skit at Candlelight with Mr. Weigle, and Westport would not be Westport without Alice Lipson and, if I may… Jack Adams. My eldest had his Ms. Lipson in Luke Rosenberg.
These are people who change lives and give meaning—and who know you don’t have to sing opera to love opera.
BTW: Based on your senior portrait, it looks like you went from self-proclaimed “chubby” to “skinny” to leading man!
Like the author I participated in every choral music program Staples offered but the beauty of the music programs in Westport went back to the junior high schools. Ernestine White at BJHS is the person who turned me on to choral music. I also found escape in choral music from the politicization that IMHO has characterized Westport going back to the immediate post WWII. Messrs. Hanulik, Weigle and Ohanion really knew what they were doing.
What a beautiful tribute. Music in the Westport schools has been a guiding and ever inspiring force in my life, first with me in all the choral groups under my mom’s direction and magic of the four building with her incredible colleagues John Hanulik, Jack Adams, Adele Valovich, and Nick Mariconda. I was priveledged in those years to witness these educators change the lives of students every day. I feel so lucky to be raising my children in Westport immersed in the music programs. It is a special joy to watch my eldest son, now a Staples Junior, Orphenian and Staples Player find an home of refuge, inspiration, collaboration and immense growth in that same 4 building. ( They now call it door 10) How very lucky we are. Thanks to Dan Woog for shining a constant light on the impacts of the arts in the Westport schools.