May 2022
My family came to Hayward from Southern California In 1970, and my father purchased a local motel. We all worked and it became a successful family business.
While working in the hotel, I went to school, graduated from Hayward High School in 1982 and then went on to study violin with Nate Rubin at Cal State Hayward (now Cal State East Bay). Halfway through my music studies, I decided to switch majors and ended up getting a degree in Business Administration. About the same time, my father sold the hotel and retired. With all the demands of my new major, and the challenges of my new work world, I stopped playing my violin.
Flash forward 20 years: As fate would have it, my mom saw a notice in the paper about tryouts for a new orchestra forming locally in Castro Valley. She called me one evening with her usual passionate personality and said, “Wesley, they are meeting tonight, why don’t you go over there and try out? What have you got to lose?”
Despite the fact that I had not played for a very long time, I took her advice, found my old violin, went to the audition, and got hooked almost immediately. In fact, I’ve been playing consistently with the Castro Valley Orchestra since its inception-20 years now. It was one of the best decisions I ever made!!
I recently joined the board of directors of CVO, and am now applying my business expertise as Treasurer for the orchestra. It has been, and continues to be a great experience.
Thanks Josh! Your guidance has been invaluable to me. Thanks also to my fellow musicians for your inspiration.
And a big thanks to my mom for helping me get my dream back of performing classical music.
Here’s to another 20 years!