When they were still in Phoenix and he was considering the job, his friends told him, “Oh, yeah, they like to work there.” “The Virginia Symphony has a reputation for being a happy orchestra,” Rous says. Then, finally, they were both in Phoenix and she was flying home from visiting some friends, and he was there, in the Phoenix airport, in a suit, on one knee, with a ring. “She is my favorite cellist I have ever heard,” he says. First he lived in Massachusetts and she lived in Seattle, then she was in Texas and he was in Connecticut, then she was in New York and he was in Michigan, and at some point he was passing through, and he came to visit her in a Juilliard practice room, and she played the Britten Cello Suite, and he sat on the floor and was amazed. So they didn’t date then, but they were in each other’s orbit. You’ll see string quartets who have had every possible permutation.” “She started dating someone else!” Rous says. “The main thing was that he was showing interest in me,” Lee says, “not the blond bimbo that he was pursuing last time.” This time, Rous was different, or maybe not different, maybe she was just seeing him differently. A mutual friend had put together an ensemble and asked them both to play. (This addendum makes things better or worse, depending.) “I said that you had all style and no substance.” “And a mediocre musician, too,” Rous says. Now the two of them sit in the sitting room of their Portsmouth home with a binder of wedding plans and a fat cat named Jack, and explain how it all happened.įirst they met at chamber music camp in 1997 he was 19, she was 16, it was summer in Maine, she thought he was the biggest showoff. In June, Rous will become half of the VSO’s newest couple when he marries substitute cellist Clara Lee. The remainder of this unfinished thought: If lightning were to strike Rous’s wedding location, it would be the day that piano music died. “Our wedding? It’s kind of like the piano Olympics. It would be a scenario of opposites attracting, Rous admits, but who knows, sometimes these things work. Or a lithe harpist and a beefy trombone player - that would be an interesting couple. Both instruments have that quirky, nerdy vibe. “An oboist and a viola player” might make a nice pairing, Benjamin Rous, the VSO’s associate conductor, says thoughtfully. But maybe okay for the stately timpanist. Not a good match for, say, the brass players, who have the reputation for being the frat boys of the orchestra. Neurotic, probably, always wanting to be the center of attention. “I thought, oh my goodness, that’s not a good idea.” Everyone knows the stereotypes about violinists, especially violinists themselves, who are the first to good-naturedly repeat them: They are highly strung divas. “I never thought I would date another violinist,” Amanda says. It read: “If one had to worry about one’s actions in respect of other people, one might as well be buried alive in an ant hill or be married to an ambitious violinist.” At their wedding, they displayed a quote by the British occultist Aleister Crowley. They met when he sat on her audition panel, romance solidified when she asked for his advice in purchasing a new violin - she bought a 1699 Rogeri - and they married 11 years ago. “Good shrimp, great tango.”Īmanda is the orchestra’s assistant concertmaster. “Amanda had a beautiful wedding,” Carlson remembers. On this night, Armstrong and her husband, Vahn, are chatting in the orchestra’s Norfolk dressing room with Carlson (clarinet) and her husband, Stephen (trumpet), a few minutes before a rehearsal. The music director, JoAnn Falletta, is married to a substitute clarinet player. If you count VSO’s non-full-time musicians, the percentage goes higher. The National Symphony Orchestra and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra each have five couples, but nearly twice the musicians. Comparatively, the National Philharmonic has three pairs out of about 65 players. In fact, in an orchestra made up of 48 core players, 18 of them are married to each other. The acting assistant principal cellist married one of the bass players a few years ago now they’re raising two small kids and two giant instruments. The assistant principal second violin is married to the principal trumpet player. The principal flutist is married to the principal percussionist. The Whites.” The Whites throw great Halloween parties.
“No, there are more,” Patti Ferrell Carlson says.
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