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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From time to time I would market the commission at my school by making an announcement. In reality though, I really wasn’t very involved.
