In Thursday’s (6/16) Huffington Post, Dani Meier writes about his father, conductor and pedagogue Gustav Meier, who died on May 27 at age 86. “My father was arguably the best-known teacher of orchestral conducting in the world, a master teacher at Tanglewood, Cabrillo, Prague, Beijing, a professor of music at Yale, Eastman, the University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins’ Peabody Conservatory…. He mentored Bobby McFerrin and the Baltimore Symphony’s Marin Alsop…. Others can speak—or have spoken—to countless memories of his gifts as a conductor and as a teacher…. But on this Father’s Day, I reflect on more domestic dimensions of this professionally larger-than-life man who raised me. The son of a Swiss factory worker, he taught me how to work with my hands. He instilled a work ethic that runs through my blood…. He loved my homemade quiche … good historical novels … Ingmar Bergman and The Rockford Files…. He and I had our struggles. But … we’d grown close again in recent years…. I’ll be thinking this Sunday, Father’s Day, about all the ways that forgiveness and grace and tenderness came together for my father and for me in his final days…. I wish that grace for all fathers, sons and daughters.”
Posted June 17, 2016
