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A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

PRIVATE PERFORMANCE

When I was at Baylor University, inasmuch as 1 was the graduate assistant brass instructor, and also
assistant band director, as well as assistant symphony orchestra conductor (although Dean Sternberg
never let me conduct it) 1 had a key to not only the music building on the Baylor Campus, but I also had
a key to the large auditorium which was situated next door to the music school. The reason 1 had a key
to the auditorium was that, sometimes at night when everything else was quiet 1 would like to go into the
auditorium and do a couple of hours trumpet practice in the empty auditorium, playing from the stage.
That enabled me to see what my trumpet sounded like in the auditorium when played from the stage,
and it was one of my favorite places to practice.

I would go into the auditorium about 8:30 or 9:00 at night, when no one else was around, and play.

One night, when I opened the door to the auditorium and went in to the lobby, I noticed that all of the
stage lights were on and something was going on. 1 slipped up to the doors which lead from the lobby in
to the auditorium, and could see that Dean Sternberg was playing some ballet music on the piano, and
that his wife, in full ballerina costume, was performing a ballet on the stage accompanied by his playing
at the piano.

They did not know I was on the premises, but the back of the auditorium was dark, and I slipped in and
sat down on a chair in the back row, curious as to what was going on.

Now I knew from having been previously told, that Mrs. Sternberg, who was also Jewish, had seen her
whole family killed by the Nazis about before the beginning of World War II, and the only reason that
she was spared was that she was an accomplished ballet dancer, of highly professional quality, and they
spared her life in order that she could entertain the officers in the Nazi German Army. She spent the war
dancing ballet for the amusement of the German High Command, and of course at that time she had
previously known Daniel Sternberg, whom she married shortly after the war, both of them being Jewish.

He already had come to America, and as soon as the war was over he arranged for her to come to the
States, where they were married and he took the position of Dean of the School of Music at Baylor
University.

The only opportunity that Mrs. Sternberg got to exercise her talent as a ballerina, was at night in the
auditorium with no audience, or so they both thought on this one particular night. But they did have an
audience of one, who was by that time fearful of being discovered, and who was extremely impressed at
the dancing of Mrs. Sternberg. To watch her, one would never dream that her feet were touching the
floor. She seemed to just simply glide through the air, like a spirit, and I have never before nor since saw
a performance of anything that was more impressive to me than was her dancing that night.

After I had watched for a while, I quietly slipped out and went somewhere else to practice my trumpet
that night. They never knew of course that they had put on a private performance for me, and I certainly
was not about to tell anyone, most especially the Dean. (Further, I have never mentioned it to a living
soul, until now.)

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