{"id":6071,"date":"2019-08-20T19:17:53","date_gmt":"2019-08-20T23:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/?p=6071"},"modified":"2019-08-20T19:18:28","modified_gmt":"2019-08-20T23:18:28","slug":"beloved-conductor-ends-career-on-high-note","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/beloved-conductor-ends-career-on-high-note\/","title":{"rendered":"Beloved Conductor Ends Career on High Note"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyra Lieberman – In Motion Staff Writer<\/p>\n

\"Dr
Dr Peterson and his wife, Pamela, reminiscing in DSC\u2019s music room.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fifty years after the Apollo 11 launch first landed humans on the moon, Dr. Douglas Peterson himself is taking one giant leap. On Sept. 10, he hands over the reins to his successor, Trent Berning, as Chair of the Mike Curb College of Music, Entertainment and Art.
\nHe will officially retire after more than 30 years at DSC and countless performances as conductor of the College Community Symphonic Band. In those years, he also rose to the rank of Chair and Senior Professor of Instrumental Music, Music History and Applied Instrumental.
\n\u201cAfter all these years, all that you learn is what you don\u2019t know. The more you learn, the more you know that you don\u2019t. Completing a doctoral degree taught me I\u2019m an infant with regard to musical history,\u201d says Peterson, who also plays the clarinet, among other instruments.
\nPeterson and his wife, Pamela, each graduated with a master\u2019s degree from Indiana University\u2019s Jacobs School of Music in the mid-1980s. The prestigious and rigorous program in Bloomington is where they honed their skills and is also where they first met, in 1981. Dr. Peterson is originally from Pennsylvania, but has lived in Daytona Beach since he was 12, aside from his years away studying at IU. Mrs. Peterson is from a small town in northern Minnesota and is an accomplished vocalist.
\n\u201cWe met in the middle!\u201d Mrs. Peterson laughs, adding, \u201cWe didn\u2019t hit it off immediately. We were friendly but he was so serious, especially back then. You had to be, though, especially to be a conductor. But it all worked out.\u201d
\nSeeing them interact, it\u2019s hard to imagine the couple as anything besides best friends, and best friends who recently celebrated their 33rd wedding anniversary.
\nWhen Dr. Peterson first began his career at DSC in December of 1986 as interim band director, the band had only nine members.
\n\u201cNine!\u201d they repeat in unison.
\nDespite having such a small group to work with, he had his heart set on a winter concert, which they made work by assembling an outstanding band, conducting and exercising a lot of creative freedom. Mrs. Peterson performed a piano and vocal recital half the time and played with the band the other half. Dr. Peterson\u2019s father played Santa Claus, handing out candy canes to the audience during the first of what has become an annual tradition, \u201cOur Gift to the Community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"P-PetersonsInterview7_mmeyers\"\u00a0As the Christmastime concerts became a tradition, a few times Dr. Peterson donned the big belly and felt hat, as his father had when he was a child.
\n\u201cOne year, I came in from the back of the house and was shouting, \u2018Merry Christmas!\u2019 and \u2018Ho ho ho!\u2019 and was walking up the aisle handing out candy canes,\u201d he recalls. \u201cThen I walked up on stage and Mr. Waidelich, who\u2019s now Assistant Chair, was conducting \u2018Here Comes Santa Claus\u2019 and didn\u2019t know I was playing Santa that year. I shook his hand and took his baton and continued conducting. But he was mortified, he didn\u2019t know who this person was, but he watched and said, \u2018Well, he looks like he knows what he\u2019s doing.\u2019 That\u2019s one of his favorite stories to tell still.\u201d
\nMrs. Peterson, a skilled singer and pianist, will continue to teach at DSC after her husband retires.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve done many, many recitals and concerts together for many years,\u201d Dr. Peterson says. \u201cHopefully we can still do a few more down the road.\u201d
\nThe DSC orchestra has grown since Dr. Peterson first conducted the nine members. Now it includes students and community members, all with varying levels of skill, but that does not make for a weak product. He strives to bring the best out in the most and least experienced musicians.
\n\u201cYou always want to set a high bar for the people in front of you and their abilities, the highest possible bar, but you always need to know there are limits. It\u2019s a careful balance because our orchestra includes students and amateurs and professionals from the community,\u201d he explains.
\nDr. Peterson approaches everything with a hopeful attitude but realistic mindset. This has helped him through tough times throughout his education and music career, but perhaps more than ever before in the past few years.
\n\u201cI am a three-year survivor of multiple myeloma. It is a cancer of the plasma, which leads to breakdown of the bones and immune system,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a terminal disease, I was told that from the very beginning. It\u2019s terminal like multiple sclerosis in a sense, in that you can treat it like it\u2019s chronic and keep going with various treatments and therapies, which is what I\u2019m doing.\u201d
\nHe was diagnosed in early 2016 when he was losing consciousness and experiencing extreme migraines, which he was already prone to. The doctor said it could be a simple infection, or something much worse. It was something much worse. He was admitted into the hospital and found out he had renal failure due to the nature of the cancer, which causes the calcium to shed from bone and was entering his bloodstream and kidneys.
\nSoon he started chemotherapy to get to the point where he could be considered for a stem cell transplant. Between February and October of that year, his \u201cnumbers\u201d were low enough that he could go to the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, where there is a multiple myeloma specialist Peterson still works with to this day.
\nHe began an outpatient stem cell transplant that October, wherein his blood was slowly cycled through a machine that collected his stem cells and began another, stronger form of chemotherapy called Melphalan.
\n\u201cThe only thing it doesn\u2019t do is kill you,\u201d Dr. Peterson says.
\nDespite his state, barely being able to move, he was required to walk a mile each day and drink 80 ounces of water. Mrs. Peterson was his designated 24-hour caregiver and \u201ccoach,\u201d as he called her. She made sure he met all the requirements and more, even when he could barely walk.
\n\u201cWe got out a day earlier than projected,\u201d she says. \u201cWe were the only ones.\u201d
\nMrs. Peterson emphasizes how lucky they were, having the insurance to afford this top-notch care and a job that allowed him to leave through the end of the semester after the transplant.
\nOf the plethora of pills he has to take each morning, one of the most essential costs $800 per pill. Without insurance? More than $16,000 per bottle, which is less than a month\u2019s supply.
\n\u201cIt becomes part of your life. I don\u2019t get too wrapped up in it, you just deal with it,\u201d he says. \u201cAlthough you certainly have your ups and downs with this disease because periodically my immune system drops again and I have to stay away from people. I\u2019ve been admitted to the hospital twice since the transplant, because if my temperature gets above 100.5 degrees, I am immediately admitted.\u201d
\nAfter the stem cell transplant, he went into a remission of almost three years before the numbers rose again and he began a new therapy. A new approach is needed each time to stay a step ahead of the cancer. He made weekly, biweekly and now is down to monthly trips to the Moffitt Cancer Center to receive treatment, early in the morning before coming back to DSC to work.
\n\u201cIt is what it is. You come to terms and deal with it. I keep up with my appointments and miss very little work, but I\u2019m fighting it everyday.\u201d
\nNow that the cancer is more under control again, the couple is back to traveling as much as possible. Even before retiring, the pair are off to Jekyll Island to relax and explore the mansions-turned-hotels and trees covered in Spanish moss.
\nOne of their most special destinations was Vienna, where many of their musical heroes lived and died.
\n\u201cEverywhere you go, there are statues and an homage to musicians,\u201d Mrs. Peterson remarks.
\nThey visited the Zentralfriedhof cemetery, where there is a circle of graves of many of the world\u2019s most renowned musicians, including Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Schubert, Strauss and Schoenberg, among others.
\n\u201cWe walked back to the entrance to the floral shop, picked up a whole bouquet of flowers and laid a flower on each of their graves,\u201d recalls Dr. Peterson. \u201cIt was unforgettable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The Peterson\u2019s enjoying a lively conversation in the DSC music room.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What music have you been enjoying lately?
\nDouglas: I always go back to classical music, that\u2019s what we were trained in and really love. Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert. There\u2019s always something new from the past to discover.
\nPamela: We\u2019ve been listening to a lot of Natalie Cole lately. She did a song that was engineered to be with her dad, who had passed, \u201cUnforgettable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where is your favorite travel destination so far?
\nD: Wherever we were last.<\/p>\n

Where do you most want to visit?
\nD: Everywhere. We\u2019ll have to visit the entire planet… if I live to be a couple hundred years old, I\u2019ll do that. But I\u2019ve never been to the West Coast and I would love to see it. Go to California. See Alaska before the ice caps melt.
\nP: I would love to see the fjords in Norway, most of my family is from there.<\/p>\n

What are some of your favorite movies?
\nD: \u201cApollo 13,\u201d \u201cAmadeus,\u201d \u201cThe Right Stuff.\u201d Anything space, really, even if it\u2019s fiction. I really liked \u201cThe Godfather\u201d and the \u201cIndiana Jones\u201d movies back in the day. We recently saw \u2018Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019 and that was pretty good.
\nP: \u201cToy Story,\u201d \u201cLion King\u201d or anything by Pixar. Such incredible voices.<\/p>\n

What sparked your interest in space?
\nD: I have always found it so fascinating. There is so much to learn and so much that we don\u2019t know. I watched the tape of the Apollo 11 launch this morning at 9:32am, which is when it launched on this day in 1969. I watched Apollo 14, 15, 16 and 17 with my father at the Cape [Canaveral].
\nP: He had a dachshund named after Gus Grissom when he was younger!<\/p>\n

How has it been working together all these years?
\nBoth: Very easy!
\nP: This happens to us all the time. We think the exact same thing all the time.
\nD: We\u2019ve worked on so many concerts, practiced, played together, and it has always come easily from the very beginning at IU.<\/p>\n

Are there any books you have enjoyed lately?
\nP: The \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d books and show. Oh, I love it. There are no mistakes in George R.R. Martin\u2019s books. I liked Tolkein, too.
\nD: Not really any books, but I get the New York Times in my driveway every morning and could read it for a couple hours every day with my coffee.
\nP: And our dachshund at his feet.<\/p>\n

Is there a motto or mindset you live by?
\nD: I don\u2019t want the day to go rushing by me. People say, \u2018You must be so ready for September to come so you can be out of here and retired,\u2019 and I always say, \u2018Oh, I can wait.\u2019 I want to stay in the day I\u2019m in for as long as I can. When the day I retire comes, it comes, but I want more hours in my days, not fewer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kyra Lieberman – In Motion Staff Writer Fifty years after the Apollo 11 launch first landed humans on the moon, Dr. Douglas Peterson himself is taking one giant leap. On Sept. 10, he hands over the reins to his successor, Trent Berning, as Chair of the Mike Curb College of Continue reading Beloved Conductor Ends Career on High Note<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6072,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cover-story","category-features","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6071"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6077,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6071\/revisions\/6077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daytonastateinmotion.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}