The Late Starters Orchestra
Goldman led a rich, full life in his late 50s, with family, faith, and career (former New York Times reporter, professor of journalism at Columbia, author of three books, including the best-selling The Search for God at Harvard, 1991).  But when he took his cello to his first rehearsal of the New York Late Starters String Orchestra, his “middle-aged musical obsession” blossomed.  Despite his bad back (a particular problem for a cellist) and everything going on in his life and the world at large, he determined to become a musician and to play at his sixtieth birthday party.  Goldman recounts first taking up the cello at 26 after a chance meeting with Mr. J, who became his beloved teacher, and later introducing his youngest child, Judah, to his instrument and watching the boy’s proficiency grow far beyond his own.  Brief sketches of Goldman’s fellow late-starter musicians add interest and make this more than just a memoir about music and all that it offers; it is also a warm and moving testament to the opportunities of aging. --Michele Leber