An Unusual Musical Experience

Perhaps you’ve seen them: the students who sport grey sweatshirts printed with a man’s face on the front, and the phrase “What’s your mother’s favorite dessert?” on the back. While for some the meaning of this shirt is a mystery, for others it shows the love and admiration for the man at the heart of the Exeter Music Department.Peter Schultz, born in New York City, began his music career playing the flute in third grade. His love for music, however, did not come naturally.“My parents provided me a little bit of encouragement, but not a lot of encouragement when I was a kid,” Schultz said. “I had an excellent teacher then, Paige Brook, who was the assistant principal of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Aside from that, I wasn’t really musically active when I was younger. I was more into baseball than I was into music. I didn’t do anything much outside of school; it wasn’t much of a big deal.”Upon attending Colby College as a Biology major, Schultz discovered what life as a musician could be like. As “ the big fish in a small pond,” Schultz was offered many opportunities specific to his time at Colby. “One of the things that happened to me was that I got called to be a replacement for somebody on maternity leave in Bangor Symphony Orchestra. The conductor, who was one of my professors at Colby, called me and asked me if I could join. That started it all, because I got to see my professors as people and have a lot of fun and laughs together. So I figured, ‘Maybe being a musician could be quite fun.’”Managing a hectic academic schedule, Schultz wasn’t able to take regular music lessons, and he struggled to keep his playing up. “I know what it’s like to balance a demanding curriculum with trying to be a musician; that’s one of the reasons I empathize with Exeter students,” Schultz said. To compensate for his loss of time spent on music during the school year, Schultz began attending music festivals during the summer, including Tanglewood, Aspen, and Northwestern.From here, Schultz attended the masters program for music at Stony Brook, and received his doctorate at the Manhattan School of Music.Schultz began pursuing his music career seriously through freelancing, teaching at Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division, Lehigh University, and playing all over the place. Soon however, freelancing became too difficult of a life.“I’d been a freelancer in NYC for many years, and the freelancing life is very hard, and nobody makes a lot of money,” Schultz said. “I was actually taking pre-med classes in secret; if you were freelancing and people found out you were taking pre-med classes, they wouldn’t hire you anymore. So, in secret, I was taking pre-med classes but also hoping that something would come through musically.”He continued, “This whole thing climaxed when I got accepted to medical school and got the Exeter job offer in the same week. In the end, I preferred being a musician than being a doctor, and so I ended up here in 1989.”Now, Schultz greatly impacts the students who take part in Exeter’s music program as a full time faculty member, teaching Chamber Orchestra, Music Theory, and acting as Band Director. “Mr. Schultz has an exceptional ability to love,” 2013 graduate Ja-Way Wang said. “He loves his students and he loves music, and that’s a large reason I really respected him in orchestra. He's also a total goofball, and in some ways he helped rekindle my love for playing violin along with others, by really trying to communicate his amazing knowledge of music and their history with the students. He doesn't teach you, he guides and invokes his students to learn for themselves.”Upper Rowan Rainwalker also emphasized Schultz’s ability to motivate students on a personal level. “Mr. Schultz is one of the truly inspiring faculty on campus,” Rainwalker said. “He has pushed me to push myself musically and really understands why I play. He also has a great sense of humor and an incredibly deep understanding of the technicalities of music. We are very lucky to have him at the Academy.”In his time here, Schultz has not only made an emotional impact but a physical impact as well. “My experience at Exeter has been great; the school, students, and I have changed a lot,” Schultz said. “It’s completely different now; for example, the band didn’t exist when I first came here. The first concert we did in the band, we had five performers, including one trumpet player who slept through the concert. It has been great to see the band grow throughout the years, to see the students in band really enjoy their time and feel like the band is a welcoming group.”“One of the things I like most about Mr. Schultz is that he is very energetic, and that energy he shows is very infectious, both to the students as well as the faculty,” music instructor Beverly Perriccio said. “When he first came here, the band consisted of only a few students. Look at it now; it has outgrown the round room! Mr. Schultz truly pours his heart and soul into this school and its students.”In his 24 years teaching on campus, he has also touched faculty with his warm, amiable demeanor as well as his passion for and commitment to students and music.“Mr. Schultz has an excellent sense of humor, he works hard, he stays on top of all the details that we have to manage here, and he obviously enjoys working with students,” Patrice Baker, assistant to the music department chair, said. “He has been here a long time, so he has a history and experience like none other, and knows the ins and outs of how things work here.”Schultz’s comic and playful personality is a quality that everyone admires. “His personality is so warm, it's impossible not to like him,” lower Chris Vazan said. “He doesn't seem to take himself seriously, but he can still work seriously. He's the kind of guy whose laugh makes everybody else around him laugh; his Yiddish jokes are the best.”For Schultz, music is his most important form of expression, having a lasting presence in his life and everyone surrounding him. “I have a few laws of music,” Schultz said. “Music exists to bypass the words. The things that you feel and the emotions that you have lie beyond the reach of words. That’s why music is important in people’s lives. It’s a non-verbal thing that goes directly into your soul. For me, I don’t separate life and music: music is life, and life is music.”So—what’s with the “What’s your mother’s favorite dessert?” sweatshirt? Students in Concert Band had them made up, quoting Mr. Schultz’s favorite question he poses to any new music student who walks through his door.