Scott Laird wrapped up a 40-year career in music education with a final spring concert at NCSSM, where he spent the last 25 years of his career. (photo: Brian Faircloth)
The final concert of the academic year at NCSSM-Durham carried special meaning for the NCSSM community and the gentleman conducting the NCSSM-Durham orchestra. After 25 years at NCSSM, Scott Laird – the school’s Fine Arts Chair and an Instructor of Music – is retiring.
“I wanted this concert to be an opportunity to say ‘thank you,’” Laird noted in remarks before the music began. “It’s about friendship, community, gratitude, and love.”
Those things were in abundant display. By the end of the one-hour show, nearly 200 participants, Laird estimates, had taken the stage to deliver a moving and powerful testament to the collaborative spirit of music. Perhaps most touching was the collection of musicians and singers assembled. Joining current students in both the orchestra and choir were a significant number of alumni and members of local organizations with whom Laird had collaborated such as Blacknall Church, the Triangle Jewish Chorale, and Riverside High School. One of his sons contributed bass guitar, and his sister, opera soprano Julianne Laird, also performed. Even some of his former students and colleagues from his first high school teaching job at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Maryland were on stage and in the audience to help celebrate Laird’s capstone performance.
The program included two pieces by Johannes Brahms: “Academic Festival Overture” and “How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place” (with community chorus); one of Laird’s original compositions; and a surprise final number which, as one of Laird’s favorite songs, turned out to be an orchestral arrangement of “Carry On Wayward Son” by the rock band, Kansas.
The moments afterward were filled with hugs and photos as Laird shared memories and exchanged mutual thanks with old friends who came out for the evening.
“It was a perfect sort of period on a 25-year run here, and a 40-year run in public music education, where I really felt everybody involved got what it was really about. They understood that it’s not about how perfectly you play [an instrument]; it’s really about how perfectly we care for each other. And then the music’s going to happen outside of that.”
