Bob and Joyce Carlson

Joyce and Bob Carlson each discovered classical music while growing up, respectively, in East and West Africa. After many years living, working, and making music in Nairobi, Kenya, the couple relocated to Binghamton in 2020 and began subscribing to the Philharmonic.

We had the pleasure recently of chatting with Joyce about her and Bob's multifaceted musical lives and the place of the Philharmonic in them.

Binghamton Philharmonic: What are your musical backgrounds?

Joyce Carlson: I grew up in a music-loving American family in East Africa. We lived in the back of beyond where, at night, the scratchy sounds of Rossini's William Tell Overture on my parents’ old gramophone were punctuated by the bark of jackals, the laughter of hyenas not so very far away, and the occasional roar of lions who had free range. We didn’t wander around in the dark at night because you never knew what you’d meet on the path!

My introduction to making music came in the form of being sat down by my mother in front of a harmonium to work my way through John Thompson’s Teaching Little Fingers to Play. Later, when we moved to Oregon during my high school and college years, I started proper piano (and eventually organ) lessons.

In the meantime, Bob was growing up in Nigeria. At boarding school around the age of fifteen, while his classmates were listening to the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Rolling Stones, Bob and a friend were collecting classical music LPs from the local Kingsway Department Store. Somewhere along the way he taught himself to play the recorder and began building up a repertoire of baroque sonatas.

BP: You recently moved to Binghamton after many years in Africa. Please tell us a little about your musical lives abroad.

JC: In 1980, with our four-year-old daughter in tow, Bob and I went to Mali in West Africa to begin a project of linguistic analysis and translation for Senufo-speaking churches in the region of Sikasso. Pianos were hard to come by, so I didn't have many chances to play, and Bob was discouraged from playing the recorder because whistles are part of Senufo funeral rituals, so the sound of the recorder made people nervous.

But even though we didn't have many opportunities to make our own music in Mali, we got our first taste of Malian kora music from artists like Salif Keïta, Ballake Sissoko, and Toumani Diabaté, along with balafon music, and Malian griot singers like Oumou Sangaré. So the music scene was rich and exciting.

In 2005 we moved to Kenya, where Bob was joining the linguistic and translation faculty at Africa International University. It wasn’t long before we were invited to join the Nairobi Music Society which put on two or three classical concerts a year in connection with the Nairobi orchestra. As members of the NMS choir, we got to sing major choral works like Mozart’s Requiem, Haydn’s Creation, works by Vivaldi, and even Brahms’s Requiem, along with songs by composers from East, West, and South Africa. We rubbed shoulders with people from all over the world. Nairobi is a city of five and a half million people, so the music scene is endlessly varied. Bob also joined the Kenya Recorder Consort and together, we participated in modest benefit recitals around the Nairobi suburb of Karen.

BP: Upon moving to Binghamton, what inspired you to subscribe to the Philharmonic?

JC: When we moved here in 2020 to be near family, we were delighted to find that, even in this relatively small city, there was a fine symphony orchestra. We still spend two months of every year in East Africa, but when we’re in town, we know that we’ll get to attend at least three concerts each season.

BP: What are the best things about being a subscriber?

JC: We love going to the pre-concert lectures and the talks at the Kilmer Mansion. When the orchestra is playing a work we know and love, it’s such a pleasure to see how it is interpreted afresh. And we are so amazed and delighted that our grandchildren are able to come to the concerts as well, since the Philharmonic offers free tickets to children 17 and under!

BP: Do you have any special concert-going traditions?

JC: When we were in Nairobi, we used to go to a restaurant after the concerts and debrief with others in the NMS choir—exhausted but generally very pleased with ourselves for having pulled off another performance. Here in Binghamton, we haven’t really gotten into a groove like that yet, but I find that just to settle into a darkened auditorium and relax into the music is enough.

BP: What would you most like our community to know about the Philharmonic?

JC: In a world bombarded with noise and stress and frenetic activity, here is one place where we can slow down and focus on something that’s full of beauty and order.

We couldn't agree more, Joyce. We are so glad that you and Bob are here, and a part of our Philharmonic Family!