Violinist celebrates joyful reunion with music

By DAVID GUNTER

Feature correspondent

COCOLALLA — When the thing that gives your life meaning is taken away, hold fast to hope. It just might make a triumphant return.

That’s how it played out for professional violinist Beth Weber’s, after she was denied the ability to play her instrument for nearly five years and then suddenly had a new lease on life and music.

Debilitating back pain — the culmination of injuries from an auto accident and the physical strain of caring for her father during his final years — left her with herniated discs that made it impossible for the artist to hold, never mind play, her instrument of choice.

“I couldn’t even stand up,” said Weber, who was also one of the region’s busiest Suzuki Method violin instructors. “I was in bed for a month and I had to learn to walk using two poles.

“I could still teach,” she added, “but I couldn’t play my own music.”

To put that in perspective, back up only a few years to the time when Weber was pulling down awards at the famous National Old Time Fiddlers Contest held each year in Weiser, and competed regularly in contest fiddling events around the Northwest. She “did some winning” in that period, placing consistently among the top players at various festivals.

Weber began playing violin at age 8 and took private lessons through high school. In college, she set the instrument aside for a time, until a disastrous fire reminded her of how close she was to her musical self. Roused out of a deep sleep by the sound of shouting in her apartment building, she opened the door of her room to find a team of firemen dragging a hose down the hallway and hollering for everyone to get out.

Despite their warning not to take anything, Weber looked down and saw her violin case, which she snatched up as she ran through the door and out of the building. Moments later, she found herself hugging the instrument case close as she stood alongside the other residents and watched the place go up in flames.

“I had grabbed the violin, even though I hadn’t even been playing it,” she said. “That’s when I realized it was the most important thing I owned.”

Reunited with the love of her creative life, Weber was carried into an era where playing led to competing and competing eventually led to teaching. Along with her private studio, she formed the Sandpoint Jr. Fiddlers group to feature her students and stepped up to lead the 25-member Festival at Sandpoint Youth Orchestra, now in its eighth year.

Her own performing and playing, though, was brought to a halt in about 2011. For the next five years, Weber increasingly came to believe that her time as a player was over.

Until this fall, when miracles started happening in precise, monthly increments, falling like dominoes in the most salubrious fashion. The tilt began in the first week of September, when Weber attended a Coeur d’Alene Symphony concert at Coeur d’Alene City Park. After the performance, she made her way to the stage with her two poles, congratulated some of the musicians and was encouraged to audition for the violin section.

A sweet overture, she thought at the time, but a virtual impossibility, given her physical condition.

Almost exactly a month later — after strong prodding from a physician — she agreed to try a steroid shot in her back. An earlier attempt at pain relief using this same approach had been a failure, so Weber wasn’t expecting a different outcome. Until, that is, the morning of Oct. 4.

“I woke up pain-free,” she said, adding that her first thought was about the invitation to audition for the orchestra. “I said, ‘It’s now or never — I’m doin’ this!’”

Auditions were scheduled for almost exactly a month later and Weber wasted no time getting ready to play before the three-member adjudication panel of master musicians. Though terrified, she made the cut and was informed that her first performance with the symphony was scheduled for one month to the day from her audition date.

“I practiced a minimum of two-and-a-half hours a day, which was joyful for me, because I hadn’t been able to play at all,” she said.

The musical homecoming gave Weber a new understanding of what her violin students dealt with in their lessons. With her instrument in one hand and her bow in the other, she began to hear her own admonitions as she stood at the music stand.

“All the things I tell my students I had to tell to myself,” the violinist said. “Play it slowly; play it carefully and consciously. I started to really appreciate what they go through.”

Her first performance with the orchestra took place on Dec. 3, and the time on stage flew by too quickly, according to the musician.

“It was thrilling,” she said. “As soon as it was done, I wanted to do it again.”

Too busy rehearsing to become emotional during the run-up to the concert, Weber was once again reminded in its aftermath of the important part music plays in her life.

“Having it back was like standing in that parking lot while the apartment was burning,” she said. “It was like meeting up with a lover again after you had been told they had died.”

There are no guarantees that the procedure that removed her pain will be a long-term solution, or even that it would work a second time, Weber noted. The artist has learned much about herself over the course of the past few months. She now believes that people come to hear performers because “they want to hear the beauty you have to offer” not because they want to criticize or “wait for you to trip up.”

She has placed a deeper value on her teaching, which bridged the chasm while she was unable to play herself. And she now understands that every note counts and every bow stroke is a gift.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be able to do this,” she said. “But I have learned that you should never give up, because things aren’t always as they seem.

“Carpe diem — seize the day,” she added.

The next Coeur d’Alene Symphony concerts — which will include fellow Sandpoint residents and orchestra members Mika Hood, principal cellist and orchestra manager; Rachel Gordon, principal flutist; Keegan Bernardin, second violin; and Sam Minker cellist — are scheduled for Jan. 20-21, at the Kroc Center in Coeur d’Alene.

After completing her early morning sessions with the Youth Orchestra and between working with her current roster of about 20 violin students, Weber spends a large chunk of each day practicing for those upcoming performances. According to the musician, her joyful reunion with making music brought with it an added benefit.

“A pervading sense of gratitude,” she shared. “It’s the honey in the tea.”