Dr. Kuhn

So, I wish that by starting a blog I could automatically write an update in explaining everything that is goin on which will pertain to all of the stuff that I will be talking about now and in the future. However, I think that that will be pretty tiedius and it would probably take the better part of a day to compose. The biggest problem with this is that I am a person that would like to be through and complete, this doesn't mean that I am this way with everything, but certain things, like giving background to a story. There is one instance however that I don't want to give background to a story, say like something that everybody and their mother would ask me, like how did you ask Stephanie to marry you? Well that is one of those things that if you just spend enough time around Stephanie and I you would just pick up on it due to our dynamic and our loving banter.

So not giving any background is very unsatisfying. I began categorizing things as satisfying when I was beneath the protected wing of those that understand my nerdy desire for order, Quantitative Analytical Chemistry lab. We were talking about data sets and spreadsheets and Excell documents. To me, data sets can be very satisfying to the point of being aesthetic. Something about having everything there in a coherent and informative manner pleases me. Although, it's as if there were a rock in my shoe if I knew that it was innacurate or incoherent or incomplete. Another thing that infringes on my desire for completeness is when clothing drawers or kitchen drawers are left open. Also, I can't do any homework on my desk until it is completely cleaned off, except for my lamp, sticky note pad and sometimes my computer.

So Sunday, at our Wind Ensemble concert, it was a strange emotion. It was Dr. Kuhn's last home concert at Concordia Unversity. His colleagues are more or less telling him to not let the door hit him on the way out. There is a nasty collection of misunderstandings and immature behavior that has preceeded this concert.

How do I accurately describe Dr. Kuhn. Background, shall we? He spent several years teaching in Hong Kong at the Concordia International High School. This essentially shaped his life, and you can tell that that experience changed the way he would do things for the rest of his life too, by the way he writes the date on the board each day that we have wind ensemble rehearsal with the day of the month first, then the month and then the year, the way the Chineese do it, to his Chineese nipple shirt, and to always informing us when it's the Chineese New Year and I think that his daily bow-tie has something to do with his experience in Hong Kong as well.


He is definitely an introvert. Combining the bow-tie thing with the curly hair and with the balding spot in the middle, he reminds me of Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. He doesn't realize it but he can produce an akward moment like nobody else. He's a difficult director to follow when he starts to create lift when conducting in a two pattern.

He would always have us over to his house, twice a year, minimum for a post concert get-together. I looked forward to going on tour with him instead of other professors because he seemed more laid back on tour instead of up-tight, he didn't feel he had to kiss anyone's @.. because he knew that the tours were supposed to be for students and not for fund raising. Bryan and I even went over to his house one night and he let us use his hottub. He always seemed more shy, but he wasn't fake. I think that the time in Hong Kong affected him to the point where he could understand things that were going on and other people couldn't, he realized that people are were Christ is, and I think that part of where the occasional akward-moment stems from is his patiences that he has by recognizing this.

Not many people give him a chance, that is to get to know him and let him get to know themselves. I belive that I gave Dr. Kuhn a chance my freshman and sophomore year of college when everybody was asking for his head on a platter because he wasn't doing the best job with the wind ensemble along with teaching classes and his business that came along with being the department chair. I'm not completely innocent of bickering then. I was upset that he wouldn't let me take lessons with Prof. Dorn instead of Dr. Pfoltner because Dr. Pfoltner just didn't have that thing, and Prof. Dorn made me want to be a better player. I eventually realized that he wasn't doing an excellent job with the Wind Ensemble even though it was probably one of our better years. My junior year was the year that he was forcefully requested to step down from being the department chair.

Everything turned around from here. There were no more student let petitions to have him ousted from authority, it seemed that he took more ownership of the band instead of having it just be another part of his day, but instead became more of a definite priority. The
akward moments didn't disappear, and the feel of the wind ensemble periods seemed different. To be honest, I can't recall any specific moments that were different, but things just seemed lighter. We didn't nessiscarily get any better, we didn't nessicarily stop bickering about how the band could be better, but things just were less disconnected.

He took a Wind Ensemble, especially the battery of the percussion to China for three weeks for cryin' out loud! That too, the choir would have never considered going to Asia. Actually the summer of 2002 the band was supposed to tour Africa, but due to the events of the previous September, that was abolished. The choir has made several visits to Germany and western Europe. This particuarly stands out to me. Europe shares our culture, Africa and China doesn't. Europe is exciting, but Asia and Africa are uncomfortable, but because of this, there is nothing like leaving your culture. He wanted the challenge and, through my eyes, kinda showed up the choir director for only wanting to Europe, but Dr. Kuhn wanted to go somewhere the touted noses of the choir might consider "uncivilized". WHAT AN ADVENTURE!

I'm glad that my collegiate instrumental music career is coming to a close with the close of Dr. Kuhn's time at Concordia. I wouldn't want to be under the baton of another conductor, probably better, probably that fits in better with the other faculty, probably with a better ear for music. I don't know why though. Maybe it's that I want to keep my thoughts of, "well, we could have been better", because having years of better musical success may wash away some of my fondness of my time under Dr. Kuhn.

It's too bad that there haven't been any mature voices speak up in the music department. The faculty may not realize how much the students can actually pick up on. I don't feel that Dr. Kuhn is completely innocent either. It's too bad that politics can be so much more important and can blur the focus of the passion, of the love of music that each faculty was hired with. People can't leave well enough alone, idle hands are the workshop of the devil.

Dr. Kuhn's son wrote a note on the Stalkers Access Network today, or I mean Facebook that basically said that he came to a realization of how valuable his father was to him. He knows all of the politics but he didn't make any mention of it. He used his words to express his feelings of how much he appreciated the work of his father. To his son, Dr. Kuhn isn't defined by his occupation, but as a father that has an occupation that he has poured his heart and soul into, into making it the best that he knew how. I think that through Dr. Kuhn's work, his son wants to thank his father for being an example of how to be a penitent sinner that lives in this world, but carries his own burdensome cross.

What does it really take to really understand somebody. What sort of measures have to be passed before people are interested in understanding somebody? Do they need to be turned into a public figure first? So it seems.

He's off to do the same thing in Oregon that he did in Nebraska, set the foundations for a reputable music department under the grace of God.

Dr. Kuhn, may God Bless you and your family in Oregon.