WCSU Professor celebrates 30 years of teaching by giving back to others
DANBURY, CONN. — It was in 1978 that an accomplished violinist from New York City was invited to a garden party at the Danbury home of famed opera singer Marian Anderson to help found the Charles Ives Center on the Westside campus of Western Connecticut State University.
WCSU Professor of Music Eric Lewis, first violinist in the internationally known Manhattan String Quartet, said the idea sounded wonderful. But it was when Anderson — the world’s greatest contralto — asked Lewis to consider, that his fate was sealed.
“How was I to refuse an icon — she was regal,” Lewis said. “It was like being summoned by the queen. I said ‘I’ll be there tomorrow.’”
That was 30 years ago, and Lewis is still teaching, conducting and performing at WestConn. To celebrate three decades at the university, Lewis will hold a benefit violin and piano recital at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, April 15, at the Ives Concert Hall on the Midtown campus, 181 White St. in Danbury. The suggested donation is $25 with the proceeds to be divided between the WestConn Music Department Scholarship Fund for String Students, and Healing the Children, an organization dedicated to sending doctors worldwide to care for children. There will be a reception in Warner Hall after the concert where patrons will be treated to a photographic exhibit by Bruce Byers, who has documented the work of Healing the Children doctors across the globe.
With pianist William Braun, Lewis will play sonata duos by Mozart, Franck and Brahms in a one-and-a-half-hour concert. The romantic, dramatic music was selected as an homage to one of his idols, Russian violinist David Oistrakh, who had a “tremendous impact on violinists of my generation,” Lewis said. “They display a great musical spectrum. They’re masterpieces from these composers. I love them for the color it brings out of the violin — and I love the interplay of the piano with the violin.”
Lewis also plays the viola and piano and is the conductor of the WCSU Chamber Orchestra. While his love of the violin was almost innate, he was steered toward another instrument when he was a young boy. Instead of giving him the violin he really wanted, his mother taught him piano when he was 3.
The Bronx, N.Y., native grew up listening to symphonies, opera and violin concertos and, after hearing Beethoven’s violin concerto at Carnegie Hall, he said “That’s it’s — I have to have a violin.” He was 5 years old.
But it took several more years of pleading before his parents broke down and purchased a violin, which he never put down. Today, the professor loves encouraging children and a little more than a year ago, Lewis purchased a violin for a 7-year-old Danbury girl with a form of autism called Asperger’s Syndrome and tutors her for free. “Pearl has become a member of the family.”
One of the reasons Lewis chose Healing the Children was that he believes in giving everyone the chance to discover themselves through music — to find their musical souls. “I don’t believe the theories of talent and genius,” said Lewis, who has given more than 1,000 concerts especially for children. “We all possess great potentialities that are not encouraged in our educational system.”
The father of 31-year-old Jamie, a music composer and producer, Lewis admits to having a powerful, protective quality when it comes to children. “I feel special kinship with children and the way they interact with each other,” he said. “If we’re going to make progress, we have to set our sights on the education and care of our children.”
Despite socio-economic differences, Lewis said children from all walks of life face abuses from being neglected emotionally, physically and spiritually, to being overstressed and over stimulated. He said “Healing the Children” attracted him because it has started to include helping children domestically with abuse issues. “We need to take care of the home front,” Lewis said. “This is the absolute core of what we’re about.”
Lewis, who received his early training at The Manhattan School of Music where he received bachelor’s and master’s performance degrees, chose the string scholarship for similar reasons. Noting a continuing lack of stringed instruments in his orchestra, he hopes to attract more students to WestConn’s music program who want to play the violin and viola.
Over the span of 30 years, Lewis has seen a lot of change at WestConn — from the expansion of the Westside campus to the improvements on the Midtown campus and the inception of WestConn’s fourth school, The School of Visual and Performing Arts. He eagerly anticipates the completion of the building that will house that school in the next several years.
“We have to build that building and fill it with orchestras, symphonic, chamber, opera and musical theater,” Lewis said. “It will be a cultural magnet for the area.”
Lewis said that WestConn has been a great place for him to grow as an educator and a performing musician. “I was brought up to believe teaching to be the highest profession you could aspire to. I count myself incredibly fortunate to have my passion for music and teaching there to rule my life,” he said. “WestConn is a place where people search. Where the professors don’t have all the answers and are seekers very involved researching and mentoring with their students.”
He’s also appreciative of the opportunity to share his love of music with his students. “I want to impart a sense of living the good life and the good life in music is being creative for preparation to take on all of life’s challenges,” he said. And he also learns from his students.
“My students are always asking the right questions,” Lewis said. “They make me deeply question my preconceived ideas.”
Lewis holds WestConn’s music program in high esteem and said there are many opportunities here for students to perform and share their music with their colleagues and with the community — from schools to nursing homes. “Interaction with the community is an important part of the cultural web we musicians use to grow in a spirit of generosity, so that we may connect on a deeper level with our audience,” he said.
The highlights of his 30-year career include working with chamber music groups and leading the orchestra. He has taught everything from music theory to music history and 30 years of music appreciation — a class that he teaches to the general population and through the adult education annex and the liberal arts core. He said teaching music appreciation gives him an opportunity to help people as they struggle with their musical souls in various conditions from suppression to exultation.
“Music connects us all in some way,” said Lewis, who has no plans on slowing down — it’s been too much fun and he’s still learning along the way.
