Eastman Reflections: Tom Toner ’00E (DMA)

“My ‘Meliora Moment’ happened 25 years ago, during the last year of my DMA program*. My father had open heart surgery the year before I started grad school. The operation was successful enough that my dad was in fairly good health through the beginning of my time at Eastman, but there were signs that summer that his health was failing, and he passed away that fall.

I had to make several trips back to my parent’s home in Vermont as he got worse, then missed a week or so of classes and rehearsals while home for the funeral. I don’t know exactly what I expected, but the support I received from the Eastman community was amazing, especially from John Beck (my teacher), Donald Hunsberger, and Jon Engberg (my advisor).

Mr. Beck called me at home to touch base and see how I was doing, and he sent a beautiful flower arrangement on behalf of the percussion studio. Even in the haze of grief, I was deeply touched by his compassion and caring.

I was playing in the Eastman Wind Ensemble (EWE) that semester, and the first class I had when I got back to Rochester was an EWE rehearsal. I’ll never forget Professor Hunsberger walking into rehearsal, seeing me, and pulling me out in the hall to ask how I was doing. (I’ve often wondered what the grad student conductor thought—the group was in the middle of a piece when he did that, and I had been playing!)

A day or two later, Mr. Engberg asked me to stop by his office. He also was concerned about how I was doing, and he shared some personal memories and words of comfort from his experience when his father died. I remember leaving his office realizing that I had joined a ‘fraternity’ that I very much didn’t want to belong to, but that most of us inevitably join.

Looking back 25 years, I realize that these three cared so deeply about Eastman and everyone in the Eastman community. Their support, even after all this time, is deeply humbling and emotionally striking. While I’d like to think that I did well at Eastman, I don’t have any illusions that I was a more special than any of my very talented classmates.

I could easily have been just another in a long list of students to these three, but that wasn’t how they treated people. I’ve tried to carry that with me and treat my own students the same way, hoping that I might be able to have this kind of lasting impact with even a few of them.

I had an amazing musical experience in my years there, but the heartfelt concern about each member of the community, exemplified by these faculty members, will always be Eastman to me.”

— Kristine Thompson, February 2020