In Wednesday’s (11/3) Charleston City Paper (South Carolina), Lindsay Koob, a Charleston-based music writer and singer, reminisces about the late Charleston Symphony Orchestra Music Director David Stahl, and also includes comments from numerous Charleston musicians: “The news of David Stahl’s untimely passing the Sunday before last hit me very hard, as it did so many others; I haven’t grieved so deeply for anybody since my dad died. I wrote about him often, and we still remained friends even though I had pointed out some of the Charleston Symphony’s performance flaws in print. … I owe David a huge debt of personal gratitude. Both directly and indirectly, he greatly enhanced the quality of my life—and not just through my regular attendance at CSO concerts. … But this tribute is hardly restricted to just my own personal David Stahl story. I’ve heard from dozens of local musicians and fans and friends whose lives David touched in deep and wonderful ways. … Music is nothing but a series of black symbols on paper without the talented and hard-working musicians who turn them into living, breathing music. And David never forgot that. While he was often quite firm about what he expected from his players, he was never the archetypal martinet conductor. He never put himself ‘above’ them in any way.”
Posted November 3, 2010
