Talents come into bloom

The magic happened in Junior High when her family moved back to the United States in the summer. Her parents found a Summer Music Clinic to send her to at Utah State in Logan. “So, I went up and I played with them for two weeks every day - did music all day long. I played in the orchestra every day and would also sing in the choir. Oh, my goodness it was like this whole new world was opening up to me of doing music With. Other. People. Up until then my music experiences had been a little bit more on the solitary side, playing the piano, yes I would play musical numbers in church, and I would direct the music in church, but suddenly to be making music with other students it was like this whole new world opened up to me and it was amazing. So fun. It had a huge impact on my life, it determines who I was going to be - just the fact of having all this music.”

Serendipitous for Lisa, The North Cache Junior High had an amazing band program with two band teachers full-time. They had hundreds of kids going through the band program. Lisa started out in the eighth-grade orchestra that kids usually began in the 7^thgrade. Her brother had started playing a clarinet when she started the violin but hadn’t continued, so there was “a clarinet sitting around home” and she got permission to join the seventh-grade beginning clarinet class halfway through the year. “There were 30 kids in that class all learning how to play clarinet it was great. Very structured very organized and boy they really move those kids along and they did a great job. So I came in halfway through the school year I already knew how to read music because I’d been playing the piano since I was seven, I was already in the orchestra and so I was a very good sight reader, I just had to learn the embouchure and the fingering. I joined that class it was great.” For a young musician life was bliss. In the ninth grade she also switched over from the violin to the viola and thrived on that kind of challenge. “I knew I would never be a fabulous violinist, and so I did very well on the viola, and we are in the all-state orchestra for two years. Which was a great opportunity to be able to go play with musicians from all over the state.  We played in the tabernacle for concerts there and so I was really happy that I got to do that. For me this period of my life it was all about playing in the music, doing all the fun stuff there, and the great activities with the Young Men and Young Women - great opportunities.”  Her piano playing didn’t do as well. “When I got there to North Logan, my parents found a piano teacher for me, nice girl but she was driving me kind of nuts it wasn’t near as challenging as what I had before. Looking back on it, I wish my parents would’ve taken me up to Utah state to the piano program there, which was phenomenal, but my parents didn’t know about it at the time. I think I took lessons for maybe a year and then I stopped, and my mom and dad gave me organ lessons for about a year from a sister in the ward. That turned out to be a great experience for me learning how to play the organ and how useful that has been over the years to be able to play the organ in church. To be able to use my skills that way. Then at that point I stopped taking piano and organ lessons and was just basically working on all the bands stuff at school.”

By the end of the year the two band teachers Bill Pretorio and Boyd Erickson – [Bill Pretorio was the clarinet guy] and he said, “we can tell that you are a great musician and would like you to switch on the bass clarinet and be bass clarinet in the honor band next year”, which was the highest band there. I said, “great I would love to do that”, and so I got to play in honor band that next year - that was fabulous. I had a band and I had orchestra they also had a really good choir director and I was in the girls glee, three-part harmony and just loads of fun and then I also sometimes play the piano for them, they had another girl who was really good that played but sometimes they needed me to do stuff. All that music was so fun!”