ABSTRACT
Some years ago I conducted a few concerts with one of America’s major orchestras. After a rehearsal, one of the violinists of the orchestra asked me if my grandmother was from the town of Minsk, Russia. He was a shy, bald-headed, bespectacled man who played the violin in the routine manner of an orchestral veteran. He explained to me that many years ago he used to play at my grandmother’s home. When he came to America he changed his name to make it more pronounceable than the Russian original. As he told me his story, a long-dormant memory came back to me. I remember the stories my grandmother told me about a wonderful boy violinist whom she befriended in Minsk, and who played concerts for the Czar and later received an important position in America. “I hope that you too will some day be a celebrated musician and perhaps even go to America,” my grandmother used to add. And this indifferent orchestra player was the erstwhile prodigy!
