by Anton Dedvukaj & Ben Hymowitz
Irvington has appointed a new teacher once again. The new orchestra teacher has arrived this year, and he not only brings an expertise in his chosen field to share with his students, but he also brings an exciting story along with it. The Paw Print had a chance to sit down with Mr. Michael Calvaresi and discuss what drew him to music.
Mr. Calvaresi has been interested in music since he was very young.
“I’ve been a musician my whole life, in a sense. I was very jealous of my sister as a little kid,” he said because “she started taking piano lessons when she was six or seven.”
He eventually got his mother to sign him up for piano lessons around age five. As he continued to play piano, his parents also gave him a Fisher-Price harmonica, and he taught himself the harmonica part of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.”
Later on, he picked up the cello, which he began to play for school in the fifth grade, up through middle school and high school. He tells us that he chose it because his mother suggested it and because he “loved the way it sounded.”
By high school, however, his music teacher recognized that [he] was really into percussion, and gave him the cymbals to try. Little did he know then that this would mark the beginning of the next big chapter of his life.
He went on to become co-captain of the drum line and continue percussion in college. He would also join a rock band called Cinder Road and his whirlwind music career would take off. The band signed a major record deal with EMI in 2006, and the band began touring with many popular rock bands over the course of the next two years, including Daughtry, Puddle of Mudd, and perhaps most notably, Kiss in 2008.
Since then, however, he’s had to say goodbye to his touring days (although the band’s web site complete with songs and videos is still accessible). When posed with the challenge of picking a full-time job, he chose teaching, which he had previously done for eight years in his home state of Maryland. His trip from rock star to a Maryland middle school classroom was featured in the Baltimore Sun in 2011.
He chose teaching music because he “recognized that none of [the touring and fame they had experienced] would have happened if not for [his] music teachers.” Mr. Calvaresi feels as though he is “paying that forward.”
