Tribute to J. Mack from one of his students

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080928/ARTICLE/809280312/2073/FEATURES?Title=Sarasota_Orchestra_will_honor_teachers

Sarasota Orchestra will honor teachers

Adam De Sorgo, principal oboe, will play a concerto by Pasculli on themes from Donizetti's "Opera La Favorita."

De Sorgo began by studying the piano, as many musicians do. "I was 7 and learning some Chopin waltzes. My teacher told me she had played one in her last recital in Hungary before the war forced her to leave her home. So, for her, the waltzes were incredibly sad. It was while listening to her play Chopin; the music suddenly meant more than pretty sounds to me." When he was 11, De Sorgo went to hear John Mack, the legendary principal oboist of the Cleveland Orchestra, who once said, 'Teaching is close to a sacred duty.' "I had never heard anything like it. It kind of moved the earth. Later on I went to study with him, and that changed my life."