From Cape to Carnegie Hall

Liesl Schoenberger Doty orders a brownie with her coffee -- it's that kind of Saturday afternoon in downtown Cape Girardeau, sunny and comfortable.

She's home for the weekend to see her mom, Brenda, "and take down the Christmas lights, of course."

Schoenberger now lives in Boston, and the travel schedule of a professional violinist doesn't allow for as much time in her hometown as she would like.

"I love Boston. There's a buzz that you really get swept up in," she says. "But I'm still a Midwestern girl at heart."

After all, this is where she first learned to play. But she seems almost embarrassed describing her start in music. She picked up the violin at 2 and a half years old, established a reputation as Cape Girardeau's violin wunderkind and earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in violin performance from Indiana University before entering the New England Conservatory for her doctorate.

Halfway through, she leans her cheek in a cupped hand. A man at the next table is a professor with whom she worked for a time at Southeast Missouri State University's River Campus.

"He's heard all this before. I don't want to bug him."

While not timid, she's soft-spoken and her Midwestern girl's humility runs deep. She'd much rather shift credit to her parents, John and Brenda.

'A knack for it'

"It turned out I had a knack for it, but my parents helped out a lot," she says. "They used to drive me 600 miles round trip for my violin lessons when I was 9 to 18 years old."

Schoenberger's father died a few years ago, and her mother has been able to visit her in Boston and see her perform with her orchestra, A Far Cry.

"They were incredibly supportive, and having musical successes in life always has a bitter sweetness when I think that he's not here to see it."

Especially when those successes include a Grammy nomination.

A Far Cry's most recent album, "Dreams & Prayers" is nominated for best chamber music/small ensemble performance.

"It's pretty frickin' awesome," she says. "Every day we just kind of jump up and down."

Except she didn't play on the actual recording, she admits. She had the opportunity to record with the orchestra or join a tour that would take her close enough to Cape to visit. She chose home.

"I knew that would happen," she jokes, rolling her eyes. "I just knew they would record it when I wasn't there and it would get nominated for a Grammy."

But she's not actually sore about it. The city lights are thrilling, but there's no place like home. She met her husband, fellow Crier Karl Doty, playing at Carnegie Hall, but married him in Cape's Old St. Vincent's Catholic Church. "The rest of the orchestra played at the wedding," she said. "And I made sure they got a good taste of Missouri; we had chicken and dumplings, kettle beef, stuff like that."

Underrated gem

For Schoenberger, Cape Girardeau isn't just home, it's an underrated gem of an arts community as well.

"Places like the River Campus; even places like this," she says, pointing around at Cup 'n' Cork's local-art decor. "We're really lucky to have them. Art changed this city, and I grew up feeling so supported and loved in this community. Even in my 30s, I still feel a tremendous amount of support. Faith, spirituality and art all feed the soul."

Her tone changes when she speaks of beauty. There's an unpretentious awe in her voice when she describes a favorite orchestral arrangement or the Boston city skyline seen from a distance for the first time. It's as if somewhere during the past 20-odd years spent studying music, she's become attuned to beautiful objects' ethereal resonance.

"Beauty is so important," she says.

She's even more grateful for having realized that not everyone enjoys a supportive environment while performing for inmates at prisons.

"You see these people who are in a place that has no beauty, and they need that," she says. She looks around, searching for an analogy. "Like this brownie. It's food, but you're not going to be healthy unless you get other foods too."

Apparently dissatisfied with the brownie analogy, she backs up and tells the whole story, about how all the musicians had to wear baggy clothes and set up in the Texas prison's chapel, and how the inmates packed into the pews shoulder to shoulder, row after row between pairs of corrections officers.

'Everthing changes'

"It was really intimidating at first, you know? We all had to wear baggy clothes and stuff and you really didn't know how anyone was going to react," she explained. "And they're not supposed to be talking, but you can see them whispering to each other, but then you start playing and everything changes."

She remembers how the musicians were no longer concerned about what any of the men had done to end up there, and the inmates were no longer as confined. Both parties were transported momentarily by the music.

"We joked a little before we got there about how it would be a captive audience," she says. "But they give you 100 percent of their presence and attention and really connect with you, which is exactly what an artist craves, you know?"

And after the performance, the inmates were allowed to ask questions and give feedback. Some told of how the music reminded them of their families or of music they used to make themselves, all of them connecting with something beautiful in their own way.

"Their emotional reactions were just so severe, direct; they were naked, really," she recalls. "I've played in five prisons so far, and they're my most memorable performances."

Her scheduled performance at the River Campus this fall is likely to rank up there as well. She's got a date in L.A. she has to make in the meantime -- the Grammy Awards take place Feb. 8 -- but she'll be back before long.

tgraef@semissourian.com

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