Disciplinarians

Nov. 8, 2007

Dear Leslie,

In the past week DC and I and our parents have seen Buddhist monk martial artists, American Indian dancers and the return of a homegrown violinist to perform with the local symphony orchestra at the new performing arts hall. A new gallery added itself to the monthly First Friday art gallery openings during the same week. Making the rounds on First Friday now can take most of the night.

Cape Girardeau has been inundated with art.

I asked a retired art professor friend if he could have imagined such a circumstance when he came here to teach in 1968. He smiled and shook his head no. For most of its history, Cape Girardeau and the arts have loved each other from afar.

When DC was growing up, her parents subscribed to a community concert series that brought performers to culture-starved Cape Girardeau from exotic places like Cincinnati and Kansas City. DC is the toughest critic I know. It's not difficult to imagine that not all these performances entranced her on sunny Sunday afternoons. DC's mother recalls her young daughter concluding after one performance that "being a patron of the arts sure can be tedious sometimes."

The monks were the opposite of tedious. Anyone who wants more discipline in their lives might try channeling a Shaolin monk. They whipped across the stage with superhuman agility, fists and swords flashing in martial arts dances hyperbolized by the movies. As usual, extraordinary abilities are even more impressive in real time and real life.

The American Indian Dance Theatre brought us stunning costumes and artistry in traditional and modern dances. Someone in the audience said she rooted for the Indians in Westerns.

I met Liesl Schoenberger when she was an eighth-grader in braces who wore cute hats and dropped jaws at fiddle contests. She began winning all kinds of contests for both fiddle and violin. She had a prodigious talent and the discipline of a Buddhist monk, practicing three or four hours a day. On weekends she traveled to Bloomington, Ind., for violin lessons or played in a fiddle contest somewhere in the Midwest.

"If you're good at something, you should pursue it," Liesl said when she was 13.

She is adventurous. Her senior year at Notre Dame Regional High School she won the brassy lead role in "Hello Dolly" even though back then she almost seemed shy without a violin in her hand.

Now she's a violin performance grad student at Indiana University who has played at both Ryman Auditorium and Carnegie Hall.

Tuesday night, prettily dressed in a black-and-white gown, 23-year-old Liesl played gorgeous melodies by Barber and Bizet and fiddled an encore. She played with mastery, sensitivity and passion. The full house, almost as proud as Liesl's parents Brenda and John, roared.

Being a patron of the arts also can make you swoon.

In school I hardly ever practiced the tenor saxophone I played. When money was needed to move across the country 20 years ago, the saxophone was expendable. I kind of missed it, like an unrequited love.

A couple of days ago while walking by an antique store downtown I spied a tenor saxophone in the front window. I went inside. The saxophone was terribly scratched up but had been recently repadded. The previous owner had put it to use. The brand was the same as the saxophone I used to play.

As I walked out of the store, a familiar heft bore on my right arm. All this artistry is inspiring. Time to practice.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a reporter for the Southeast Missourian.

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