You are here
Ushering In New Board Member Don Rupchock
Don Rupchock remembers his first experience of the UW World Series: “It was a Sunday afternoon in April, 1985, and I came to see pianist Murray Perahia. He was amazing.” Don started attending more and more President’s Piano Series concerts, and has been a subscriber since 1987. He started subscribing to the International Chamber Music Series a few years later.
[Pictured above: Toni and Don Rupchock with pianist Richard Goode in 2014.]
Don moved to the Puget Sound region after graduating from University of Michigan with a degree in aerospace engineering. He’s worked for the Boeing Company since 1984 as an engineer in the company’s propulsion group. Although he has no musical training beyond one semester of music appreciation in college, he has a life-long love for live music that he picked up while a student at UM, Ann Arbor.
“I used to listen to a rock ‘n roll station on the radio, but it wasn’t a great soundtrack to study by,” Don recalls. “So I switched to a public radio station that was playing classical music, and discovered I liked it.”
In an effort to get more exposure to classical music, Don became an usher for UM’s presenting arts organization, University Musical Society. “It was a way to hear great music on a student’s budget. And it made me a testament to the profound impact a first-rate university performing arts presenter can have on a student. ”Don put his ushering skills to work again in 1990, this time volunteering for the Seattle Chamber Music Festival—where he got more than just free admission to a concert. He met a fellow volunteer with a passion for music named Toni; they were married in 1992.
After subscribing to the UW World Series for nearly thirty years, Don decided this year to take the next step and volunteer—not as an usher, this time, but as a member of our Advisory Board of Directors. He’s excited to be a member of the programming committee. “We had our first meeting a couple of months ago,” he says. “It’s exciting to see what goes into making a season—the huge juggling act to combine the new and the familiar.” Although he is sworn to secrecy and can’t tell which artists are under consideration for the 2015-16 season, Don is willing to reveal that “the whole piano season looks very exciting if it holds together.”
Coming from a piano aficionado who has traveled as far as San Francisco, New York, Lewiston, ME, and Rockport, MA to see Richard Goode perform 40 times since 1989—including his most recent appearance here at the UW World Series in March, 2014—that’s saying something. Asked what it is about Richard Goode in particular that so delights him, Don responds, “It’s a tough question for a non-musician. Incredible warmth and beauty of sound produced; clarity; absence of histrionics, mannerisms, quirks; a sense of purpose; repertoire choices aligning with my likes (the Sonoma concert this year was the last 3 Beethoven sonatas – Heaven!) all figure in.”
One of the things Don appreciates most about UW World Series is its “new ideas and new thinking.” But without dedicated board members like him who are willing to give generously of their time and passion in support of the UW World Series, those new ideas wouldn’t go far. We’ll have to wait until Center Stage to see if that exciting piano series does, indeed, hold together. In the meantime, look for Don on January 13 at the Takacs Quartet concert.