Beverly Andrews, Concertmaster

Beverly comes from a musical family.  Beverly attributes her career as a professional musician to a deathbed request made by her grandmother back in 1930.  Her dying wish was to make sure that her daughter, only 5 years old at the time, received piano lessons.  So, Beverly’s mother grew up playing the piano, and passed along the family trade.  She now attends every WSO concert since moving to town a few years ago.     

When asked why she likes playing in the orchestra, Beverly says, “The sound of all those orchestral instruments is like the swelling of a huge wave in the ocean.  We ride the wave like surfers or like dolphins leaping with musical joy in that wave of sound.  It's exhilarating.  It's satisfying. It fills holes in your soul.”

When Beverly was in 4th grade, the public school system in Midland Michigan gave hearing tests to all the children.  The results said, "Beverly sure can hear!", and she was asked to begin playing a stringed instrument at school, which changed her life.   

At the dress rehearsal for her college senior recital she was playing with such passion that she ended Lalo's “Symphonie Espanole” with such flair that she launched her bow out into the middle of the auditorium. She says of the incident, “Luckily my bow didn't break and since then, I have hung onto it.”

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