Recently Scott and I had a lunch date and we decided to visit the BYU Harris Fine Arts Center before it gets torn down. This is the building otherwise known as the HFAC. Scott and I were both music majors at BYU and we spent many hours there studying music, making friends, and falling in love. (Aaaahhhh.) These days the building is starting to look pretty empty with the semester over and the dismantling beginning.
In the olden days, we rehearsed together in E-250 with the BYU Philharmonic. OK, not so much together but in the same room with about 100 other people. Scott was on one side of the room with the trombones and I was on the other with the violins. Clyn Barrus was our conductor and he had a lot of passion for the music. We also attended our third semester of music theory with Dr. Michael Hicks in a classroom on the third floor. That was a smaller class of about 20 people. One Monday morning at the end of November in 1987, I walked into class with a huge cast on my arm after I broke my wrist the night before, whereupon Dr. Hicks felt compelled to make a joke about it. Thankfully the broken arm didn't disrupt my music plans for more than about two months.
The music students used to hang out together doing homework on the third floor by the stairwell. We spent hours and hours and hours in the practice rooms preparing for private lessons and end of semester juries. We attended music history classes and master classes and practiced in quartets and duets and trios and trombone choirs.
We performed in the de Jong Concert Hall on stage with the Philharmonic. Scott also played with Synthesis there. Sometimes we played in the pit for other shows. Scott got to do a trombone concerto on stage there accompanied by the orchestra during Concerto Night in the fall of 1989. And Scott was even a stagehand one semester! Now the de Jong is full of scaffolding.
We both played in the Madsen Recital Hall for solo recitals or chamber recitals. I played in the Chamber Orchestra and in several different chamber ensembles. We attended countless concerts and recitals for our required 149R class--8 semesters of 15 concerts a semester. One night, the two of us spent so much time talking during a New Music concert that someone sitting in front of us got really mad and stalked out after telling us how rude we had been. After that chastising, we wrote on the backs of our programs to communicate. We learned our lesson! Here was the box where we submitted our signed programs complete with Social Security numbers under our names to identify us so we could get credit for attending. Those were the pre-identity theft days when it never occurred to us that Social Security numbers should be private. Those numbers were also written in our textbooks.
We did homework sitting in the music hall of the second floor. One day, Scott and I sat outside Ray Smith's office working on homework. We decided to ask Ray for help with one of our questions. That was the fateful time when Ray said I was an amazing babysitter for his kids and Scott decided he definitely needed to ask me out!
So many memories in that place. I grew up a lot during my time at BYU and the HFAC was a big part of that. I grew not only in my musical knowledge but also in my knowledge of the gospel and of who I wanted to be. I'm grateful that I got to be there.
I'm grateful some of my children also got to be there. Several children had concerts there, including Susanna, Garrett, Jan, and Lincoln.
Lincoln had a recital in E-400 back in 2014 shortly before his mission:
All things must eventually change and this building is no exception. Now almost 60 years old, it has been inadequate as a facility for the arts for many years and is starting to be dismantled to make room for other things. A new music building is almost finished and the HFAC will be replaced by a new arts building.
So today Scott and I said goodbye to this building full of good memories for us. Now we'll have to rely on pictures and our memory to remember the old HFAC. But we get to keep the most important links to the HFAC. We still use our musical education in lots of ways and we still have friends from our time there. Most importantly, the relationship we formed here will last forever.💖
This last week, my brother and his wife lost a very precious son, just 13 years old. He collapsed while running with a cross-country team and passed away before he could be revived. Everyone that knew Drew is broken-hearted at this loss. He was the happiest, most agreeable kid we knew. I remember him being at my house without anyone close to his age to hang out with, so he found our Duplo blocks and started building even though it is a toy that boys his age don't usually enjoy. He was so content. He didn't complain that I ever remember. His mother always called him the perfect child. He will leave a big hole in not only his immediate family but our extended family as well. Here is a poem my aunt shared that seems fitting: Leave Taking How I would have liked to wave goodbye and watch until you turned and smiled and disappeared on the horizon. You who taught me to dance and let me teach you, who laughed at my stories and winked at me when I was sad. I can just see you trav
This weekend we celebrated Drew's life. On Thursday night, we gathered as an extended family and had a dinner then sat in a big circle and talked about our memories of him. I took some notes and here is what people said. Grandpa (Gary Hansen): The last time we saw Drew was last week on the 4th. I remember all the cousins on the trampoline, bouncing up and down and playing basketball. Grandma (Susan Hansen): I asked Drew to come over last winter to teach my Activity Day boys how to make origami stars. He was very patient in working with them even though they were pretty clueless. Eventually they all went home happily with their stars. Paula: This last winter we invited Bruce and Michelle over for dinner and we didn't have anyone his age for him to hang out with. I remember that Drew found the Duplo blocks on his own and played with them all by himself, quite cheerfully entertaining himself. I asked him if he wanted to play with a different toy--maybe something more sophistica
Yesterday was the viewing for Drew and then today was the funeral. There were a LOT of people at the viewing. Bruce and Michelle greeted people for almost four hours yesterday and then again this morning before the funeral. Bruce said that if weren't for Drew's death, it would be the best week of his life with so much love being shown to them. Friday actually began with a family run in Drew's honor. We started at a church by the new Lindon temple and ran to Bruce and Michelle's house with breakfast following. Friday night was the viewing. There was a very nice display of all things Drew. This was one of the pictures displayed and I recognized someone I know: We stood in line and the paramedics who worked on Drew stood in line behind us so we got to talk to them. Here's a fun fact: They cover both Orem and Vineyard but Vineyard gets a lot more 911 calls than Orem per capita. It's a younger population and they are quicker to call. They said it's hard when the
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment