Last week I received some unexpected and very sad news.\u00a0 The director of the music program at Drexel, Myron (Mike) Moss, passed away suddenly this past Monday.<\/p>\n
I first met Mike in 2009 when he was looking for an adjunct horn teacher to come and teach at Drexel.\u00a0 The thing that impressed me immediately was his enthusiasm and kindness.\u00a0 He had such high hopes and endless ideas for building the program at Drexel and he wanted for me to be a part of that.<\/p>\n
During my time at Drexel, I knew that I could go to Mike with any concern or problem and he would listen and do everything in his power to help me. I know it was the same for all of my colleagues.<\/p>\n
He asked me once to come and listen to the band play and give my feedback to the students.\u00a0 So I spent a good deal of time just watching him conduct and interact with the students.\u00a0 His enthusiasm, quirky and funny as it was sometimes, was contagious.<\/p>\n
Since I was only at Drexel a few hours a week, and often on Saturday, I didn\u2019t get to know Mike as well as I might have over the past few years, but we corresponded by email about students and ideas for the program as well as some other correspondence about some of my blog posts.\u00a0 I got to know him as well as I could given the limited interaction.\u00a0 He was such a thoughtful man.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll let some of his words speak for themselves.\u00a0 He writes to me in response to a post last summer in which I sign off with an excerpt from Rainer Maria Rilke\u2019s Letters to a Young Poet<\/em>.\u00a0 He writes:<\/p>\n This must be the Summer of Rilke. I was re-reading the <\/em>Letters to a Young Poet, and one of my facebook friends (wife of a former student) mentioned singing settings of his <\/em>Book of Hours. I began reading them in early July and am really relishing the insights and moral energy in his writing. These are short poems, mostly addressed to God. Truly amazing. Anyway, your sign-off on travel, with Rilke seemed so timely and appropriate.<\/em><\/p>\n He went on to talk about running (something I have done in the past) and mentioned his goal to run a half marathon as a 60th birthday present to himself. \u00a0That there was something so celebratory about the act of running.\u00a0 Not for the goal of the finish line, but as an act unto itself.<\/p>\n There are so many beautiful poems in The Book Of Hours<\/em>.\u00a0 I find myself wishing that I could talk with Mike about them now.\u00a0 Here is one that perhaps he might have us contemplate at this moment:<\/p>\n No, my life is not this precipitous hour<\/em><\/p>\n through which you see me passing at a run.<\/em> I am the rest between two notes<\/em> But in the dark pause, trembling, the notes meet,<\/em> \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026 And the song continues sweet.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2013 Rainer Maria Rilke, Poems from the Book of Hours<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rest in Peace, Mike. \u00a0You left us far too soon, and we will miss you.<\/strong><\/p>\n Last week I received some unexpected and very sad news.\u00a0 The director of the music program at Drexel, Myron (Mike) Moss, passed away suddenly this past Monday. I first met Mike in 2009 when he was looking for an adjunct … Continue reading
\n I stand before my background like a tree.<\/em>
\n Of all my many mouths I am but one,<\/em>
\n and that which soonest chooses to be dumb.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n which, struck together, sound discordantly,<\/em>
\n because death\u2019s note would claim a higher key.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n harmonious.<\/em><\/p>\n