Take note: Professionals by day, musicians by night

String bass player Jeremy Nicholas logged 15,000 miles on his car last year traveling between rehearsals and concerts he played with orchestras in Fort Collins, Greeley, Cheyenne and Colorado Springs.

Nicholas, 27, lives in Denver and pieces together a living as a freelance musician. His dream is to make a full-time salary with benefits playing for a large orchestra like the Denver-based Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Two weeks ago, he auditioned for the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, which pays about $40,000 a year with benefits.

“I can almost say I make a living as a freelance musician,” Nicholas said. “But it’s kind of disheartening. A high percentage of musicians end up dropping out.”

In fact, many of the musicians in semi-professional orchestras in Northern Colorado have full-time jobs to supplement their passion for music.

In the Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the highest-paying orchestras between Denver and Cheyenne, many players are University of Northern Colorado music professors and music teachers in secondary education.

The chairs of the Fort Collins Symphony Orchestra are filled with attorneys, software engineers, business owners, horticulturists and music professors and teachers who offer private music instruction in their homes.

They come together a dozen times a year to perform for the community because of their love for music.

“It’s a high level of commitment,´ said ‘Cille Lutsch, orchestra manager for the 60-member Fort Collins Symphony. “The average musician in our orchestra gets paid about $10 an hour. But musicians don’t go into this for the money.”

‘I can’t let it go.’

After Fort Collins Symphony Orchestra concerts, people sometimes approach Yvonne Myers with more than just a polite thank-you.

“‘Can we get your autograph?'” they say. ‘We’ve never seen a lady bass player,'” Myers said with a laugh.

Myers, 45, has been playing the string bass for the orchestra since 1979. For her day job, she works as the health systems coordinator for Columbine Health Systems, which offers long-term health services to seniors in Fort Collins.

Myers started playing string bass when she was young but never considered it a career path, just a passionate interest.

The weeks before concerts are the most hectic for Myers. There are typically four rehearsals prior to classical concerts and two rehearsals before pops concerts.

Before a recent concert in which the orchestra played a unique version of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Myers needed some extra practice time. She rehearsed at 4 a.m. in her basement. The music was so loud, her husband woke up thinking the house had exploded.

“There are times I think I don’t have the time in the day to keep doing it,” Myers said. “But I can’t let it go. You get addicted. When you hear a standing ovation after a concert, it’s all worth it.”

Taking a toll

Charles Tucker, principal cellist for the Fort Collins Symphony, took an unusual journey to become an attorney.

For 20 years, Tucker was a professional musician. He knows what it’s like to play as a freelancer, and he knows how difficult it can be to get a full-time orchestra job. His latest full-time orchestra position was with the Naples Philharmonic in Florida.

Tucker also knows that after a while, playing professionally takes its toll. He developed arthritis, which made it difficult for him to play the cello every day. He also loves to write and do research, which he never got to do as a musician.

So in 1997, Tucker started law school in Minnesota. In 2000, Tucker and his family moved to Fort Collins. His wife, Heidi Mausbach, is the principal cellist for the Greeley Philharmonic.

Now an associate attorney with the Fort Collins firm Frey, Korb, Haggerty and Michaels, Tucker finds many of the skills he acquired as a musician transfer to his law career.

“Preparing for a hearing or a trial is similar to preparing for a performance,” he said.

Next February, Tucker will play a cello concerto with the Fort Collins Symphony, a concert that will feature him playing solo with orchestra accompaniment.

“The people I play with have a high level of musicianship,” he said. “I hope to keep doing it as long as I can.”

Pursuing a dream

In addition to playing for the Greeley Philharmonic and Colorado Springs Symphony, Nicholas is the principal bass player for the Fort Collins and Cheyenne orchestras.

He first picked up the bass as a teenager, but not because he liked music. He and his friends liked a couple of girls who had signed up to play violin in their junior-high orchestra. His friends and the girls abandoned their instruments long ago, but Nicholas fell in love with the bass.

He studied music at Illinois Wesleyan University and earned his master’s degree in music at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He played in a few orchestras in graduate school and started playing for a few more after earning his degree.

Orchestras in the region work together to schedule their concerts so musicians like Nicholas can play in several of them.

But Nicholas said some musicians abandon their dream to play full-time for an orchestra because the competition is fierce, and freelancing is hard to do long-term. Only a handful of full-time positions nationwide open each year, and musicians compete against dozens of others for one job.

“The thing is that once you get a full-time job doing something else, you don’t have the time to put into preparing for the auditions for the full-time orchestra jobs,” he said.

Nicholas said he’s determined to stick it out until he gets his dream job. Until then, he’ll keep logging the miles on his car, driving between rehearsals and performances across the Front Range.

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