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Vincent Danner came to Memphis to conduct, teach and help kids find their own voice the way others helped him.
Danner says it was the opportunity to work with the youth symphony - a group of three orchestras for kids 818 throughout the region - that made him choose Memphis when the symphony approached him in 1995 to be its assistant conductor. He was at a turning point in his career, and even considered leaving music altogether. But everything in his experience told him otherwise.
Danner is an only child, whose mother taught classical music and served as choir director in her father's Methodist church. It was "high-brow," Danner says none of the gospel music that was the staple of some other African-American congregations. Music was always in the Danner home, whether from the choir members who came for rehearsals or the classical 33-rpm records around the house.
It was a fifth-grade teacher who first brought Danner's attention to music in a serious way when she brought instruments into class. He wanted the violin, but his mother said trombone. In the sixth grade he added the tuba, then the Hammond organ at church, and finally piano lessons by eighth grade.
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