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PENINSULA PROFILE PENINSULA DAILY NEWS ✧ SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2013
Tyrone Tidwell
Path of & twists
turns Musician picks life back up after accident BY DIANE URBANI
DE LA
PAZ
PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
PORT ANGELES — Tyrone Tidwell lay in the hospital in Limerick, Ireland, following an accident that was to halt his musical career. Then 23, Tidwell had won a scholarship to the master’s degree program at the University of Limerick’s Irish World Music Centre. He was studying with the formidable violist Bruno Giuranna. Giuranna came to the hospital to visit and, did something that shocked his student. “I had always thought of him as stoic,” Tidwell remembered. But that day, “he actually shed a tear.” It was 2003, and Tidwell had been in a bicycle accident in Limerick. A head injury paralyzed his right side, erased his memory and took away his speech. He understood what people said to him but could form no sentences of his own. The accident redirected him onto a new path, a circuitous route to a different kind of life as a musician, and eventually to a new home town in the far corner of the United States. Tidwell spent a month and a half in that Irish hospital. Then came the long recovery process, during which he decided to take a break from his master’s program. Meantime, Michelle Tidwell had advice for her son.
DIANE URBANI
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PAZ/PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
PA P A Symphony Sym opens its 2013-2014 201 its season
inish the program, she told him. If you don’t, you’ll regret it. He managed to do so. But then Tidwell returned to the States, to Jacksonville, Fla., in 2004. He found a job at the Bank of America there and began working his way up. He also heard about another possibility. The Violin Shop of Jacksonville was looking for a music teacher. Tidwell walked in, outlined his credentials and soon began giving lessons to a growing number of students. Before too long he had a full complement in his studio and had to quit the bank. Tidwell’s musical career flowered: He also became a music teacher at A Child’s Place Montessori school in Jacksonville, and in 2006, he enjoyed a stint with The Young Eight, an African American string octet playing concerts in North Carolina and traveling to Seattle for a weeklong residency. But the accident’s effects would resurface. He suffered a manic episode due to his brain injury and had to stop teaching. Tidwell was fortunate, he emphasized, to return to his job at the Bank of America. During his time in Florida, Tidwell also met his partner, Christopher Beatty. Beatty, it turned out, had lived in Seattle and vacationed on the North Olympic Peninsula. So when the couple began to think about moving — Jacksonville was not a gay-friendly city, Tidwell felt — they looked at Port Angeles. And by last fall, Tidwell got himself transferred to Port Angeles’ B of A branch; he and Beatty also found an ideal house to move into. TURN
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THE PORT TH PO ORT T ANGELES ANG N E Symphony Orchestra will open its 201320 2 2014 14 season sea e son n Saturday, Sa atu t rd rda Nov. 2, with two concerts at the Port Angele les es High gh h School Schoo ool Performing Perff Pe Arts Center, 304 E. Park Ave. First, F Fi rst, the the h public pub blilc is invited to the morning dress rehearsal at 10 o’cloc o’clock; ck; k admission adm miss is $5 per person or $10 per family. Th The he evening even ni performance follows with a short talk by cond conductor ductor A Adam Stern at 6:40 p.m. and the concert at 7 7: 7:30 30 p p.m. . . .m Tick Tickets ket e s range from $12 to $30, while youth age 16 and an d youn younger ng get in free when accompanied by an adult. These T ese opening concerts celebrate the music of Th Mozart, M za Mo art r , with w his overture from “The Magic Flute;” Brahms, Brahm Br ms, with his Symphony No. 1; and Martinu, with h hi hiss Rhapsody-Concerto R ap Rh ps for Viola and Orchestra. The vi visiting isi s titng g sol soloist l is violist Melia Watras of Seattle; Northwe west est s Public Radio’s Robin Rilette is also a special g gu guest es speaker. General seating tickets are on sale in a advance at Port Book and News, 104 E. First St., Port Angeles, and in Sequim at The Good Book/Joyful Noise Music Center, 108 W. Washington St., and Sequim Village Glass, 761 Carlsborg Road. Reserved seats and more information await at the Port Angeles Symphony office, 360-457-5579, and www. P PortAngelesSymphony.org. Peninsula Daily News
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