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Sunday, Aug. 02, 2009

Jardine: As violin swells, a life devoted to music fades

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A life can be like a symphony, a series of movements that come together as one and build toward an all-defining finale.

Sidney Voight lived a symphonic life, a life of many movements encompassing a youthful love that became a lifelong romance -- his music, particularly the violin, and collecting old clocks and other antiques.

He saw the world by playing in cruise ship orchestras before settling in Modesto and offering his musical gifts to the community for decades.

Voight's finale came July 4 at Community Hospice's Alexander Cohen Hospice House, leukemia taking him quickly at 94.

"When he passed, it wasn't really a sad event for me," said nephew Bob Kaiser, a Grass Valley resident, who is among Voight's few surviving kin. "He died the way he wanted to go."

On the day before Voight died, violinist Don Grishaw of the Modesto Symphony Orchestra came to Voight's room to play a private concert.

The sounds of Bach, Handel and Fritz Kreisler filled the room and drifted out into the hallways, stirring Voight's senses for the last time.

"Sidney was not lucid at the end of his life," Kaiser said. "He'd gone downhill quickly. But he did understand what was going on. He opened his eyes."

You see, Voight played in the Modesto Symphony as its concertmaster and first violin under the legendary Frank Mancini in the 1940s and 1950s.

"(The concert) was the completion of what his life for 94 years was all about," Kaiser said.

Voight's symphony of life began in Wisconsin where, at his mother's insistence, he began taking violin lessons in the fourth grade. Music came naturally to him. He learned to play the guitar, piano, saxophone, clarinet and other instruments.

He left home at 17 and married his former high school English teacher, Beatrice Fairbrother.

"She was six or seven years his senior," Kaiser said. "They left on an adventure, destination California. But it took 'em four years to get here. He played in local community bands and orchestras along the way, and he played in the Big Band era."

After a few years playing on the cruise ships, he and Beatrice finally arrived in California in the late 1930s. Sidney went to San Jose State to get his teaching credential while working for Litton Industries, a tech company in Silicon Valley before it became Silicon Valley.

In 1946, Voight accepted an offer to teach music in Modesto, where Mancini soon recruited him into the symphony.

The Voights made Modesto their home. They had no children, but they had each other and the thousands of students Sidney taught to play musical instruments. They also had their hobbies. Beatrice collected handmade dolls.

"Some of them dated back to the 18th century," Kaiser said.

Sidney collected much, much more: antique musical instruments with an emphasis on guitars, antique clocks dating to the 1700s, antique furnishings of all kinds and ham radio equipment.

"He had a ham radio setup that was more powerful than the local radio stations," Kaiser said. "He talked all over the world. He had a tremendous radio collection when he died."

Voight's plan? To open an antique store one day. But it never happened. Beatrice died in the 1970s.

By the mid-1990s, he'd filled his house with antiques and collectibles.

"He had no room to live," Kaiser said.

So Voight moved out, taking up residence in a mobile home on McHenry Avenue, returning to the house every day or so to check on things.

Voight continued to perform, playing the piano and violin for senior citizens' groups around Modesto. He had a female companion for a few years. She died in 2000. He stayed in touch with Kaiser and another nephew, Darold Fairbrother, who lives in the Midwest. Mobile home park neighbor Larry Denny dropped by nearly every day to check up on him and make sure his needs were met.