The Gateways Music Festival has been presenting concerts and events celebrating Black classical artistry for 34 years, 32 of them in Rochester. This fall’s festival starts this Friday, with a sold-out concert by a beloved Rochester musician, violist George Taylor.
His involvement with the festival dates back to before it came to Rochester, but he relates that it "hit home" more here in Rochester. "Suffice it to say that in in a larger metropolitan area like New York, there would be a larger demographic of of people of color playing instruments. North Carolina had fewer, also, but there is also a demographic black middle class, musicians, etc. bankers, etc."
"When I got here, the story was a little different." He recalls that,"Seth McCoy was the other person of color on the faculty, and when he passed, that left me. And so when Armenta was was invited to come teach and to bring the festival to Rochester, was is sort of like fresh air coming, a semi isolation, if you will, or drought was was lifted."
The past few years have brought some major changes to his professional life. He was decades into his successful performing and teaching career, when began asking himself some tough questions. It was during COVID, following the killing of George Floyd and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement.
"I have been so privileged to be in this environment where I have students who have to pay lots of money for the privilege of being in a room with me, and I'm from the South Bronx in New York City, and I come from poverty. I'm from the Fort Apache area in the Bronx, and was luckily lucky to be able to leave there. And so here I was at this kind of syncretic juncture in history, wondering, 'Where am I outside the viola?'"
That reflection led him to enroll in New York City’s Union Theological Seminary, pursuing a degree in divinity.
"I will be 71 in in in two weeks, and so I pursued this degree you know at age 67, 68. I have a lot of cachet as professor of viola and as a performer, and it was it was humbling to be in a position where you're starting basically as a beginner again."
Those challenging years of study culminated with a residency as a chaplain at Strong Memorial Hospital. And it all enriched his his music teaching, which he says has always has had a spiritual component:
"The one thing about the spiritual life and where it where it cohabitates with with the life that I've been leading is this, and that is: we do this for other people."
"We are the gatekeepers of the spiritual life of a human being. Everything in the arts is that all the dancing, all the the artwork, all the sculpture, all the music is gatekeeping this sacred place that resides in all of us and gives us access to it."
Taylor now works with local Buddhist organizations as a “lay monk.” And he plans to return to do more work as a chaplain at Strong Hospital in the future – while continuing to teach and play music.
George Taylor’s recital for this Friday has sold out, but you can find more about the rest of the festival concerts through the weekend through the Gateways Music Festival website.
