It was music—playing music, in bands, orchestras, and my own brass sextet for which I wrote arrangements—that gave me a much-needed sense of purpose and self-worth as a teenager. I headed off to the Oberlin Conservatory in 1970 with vague intentions for a career as a professional trombonist. It was there that I encountered my limitations as a player and, though I took eight semesters of applied study on my chosen instrument and racked up many hours in ensembles big and small, finished as a biology major. As an 18 year-old, I didn’t appreciate that there were future employment possibilities other than an orchestral musician or high school band director—journalism or musicology, for instance. Two decades later, settled in a career as a physician, I realized that something was missing from my life that concert-going, record collecting, and an increasing interest in high-performance audio gear didn’t fully satisfy. I needed that sense of total engagement that I had as a kid when playing music.

I entered a recording-review contest conducted by Stereophile and won (I later found out there had been a grand total of about 10 entrants). The experience hooked me on the challenge of writing about music, the task of describing in words the ineffable. I submitted a long survey of Messiaen recordings to The Absolute Sound, my favorite audiophile publication, and haven’t missed an issue in over 12 years. Steady assignments for Fanfare soon followed. I also contribute to a local music magazine, Philadelphia Music Makers, along with fellow Philadelphians and Fanfare reviewers Art Lintgen and Peter Burwasser. I consider myself a generalist, but my history as a brass player assures an ongoing affection for large-scale symphonic repertoire, and I have a particular obsession with Wagner, whom I can’t seem to hear enough of or read enough about.

I also maintain a strong interest in technical matters, and gladly volunteered, for example, to write the Fanfare features introducing SACD, DVD-Audio, and the new high-resolution video formats, Blu-ray and HD DVD. Multichannel music—surround sound—is a particular passion of mine because of its potential to provide a sense of occasion and a specific performance venue while listening at home. The development of music downloads, I feel, may save classical music recording and perhaps even enlarge the audience for our genre. There’s never been a better time to be a Serious Record Collector!