Kendra S. Horn: “I happened to go to a high school where we had an outstanding music department. We had a 100-piece concert band, a…”

“I happened to go to a high school where we had an outstanding music department. We had a 100-piece concert band, a 60-voice choir and a 60-piece orchestra. Now that was in a school of 500 where only maybe 10 out of the 110 graduates went on to college, but it made a difference in peoples' lives to hear Tchaikovsky, to hear Brahms, to hear Beethoven, to have tears come to your eyes. It makes you a human being, and that is what we ought to be encouraging in this country. Think of this king of this or that country had not been funding money to Beethoven or to Mozart. Those were the patrons of their day two centuries ago. What a difference their music has made in our lives. Mozart died, as we all know, at a very young age, in his thirties, and Tchaikovsky and others had patrons. Well, there are still patrons for our symphonies, and some large symphonies frankly I do not worry about; they can get the money in a major city. But it is those middle-sized cities and those very small cities that are just beginning in a musical adventure that we need to give encouragement and stimulus to.”