Violist talks about music, goals

Frieda has been playing since the fifth grade.

By Kelsey MacDonald

Published April 27, 2009

Senior Dustin Frieda once had hopes of becoming a zookeeper. The fantasy, though, was replaced by fantasies of joining a professional symphony.

That's not out of reach for Frieda, a viola player, who was featured April 10 in one of five senior recitals at Whitmore Recital Hall. He was accepted to graduate school at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Frieda's friends and instructors said after he completes graduate school, he will be an important figure in the musical world, and with all of the skill and enthusiasm he possesses now, he is certainly someone to watch out for.

Frieda has been playing the viola since the fifth grade, but it was not his first choice of instrument. He originally wanted to play the cello, but his bus driver would not allow such a large instrument on the bus and his mother refused to pick him up from school.

"And so I got stuck with the viola," he said.

Frieda has had six majors since coming to MU, beginning with biochemistry and settling on music performance and anthropology. He wanted to be a scientist, work for a drug company and make "lots of money," but he decided to give that up.

His professor, Leslie Perna, was the one who influenced him to switch majors.

"(She) was very supportive as I was trying to figure out, you know, should I switch to it professionally or not?" he said.

Frieda uses her as a role model as to how to pursue a career in music without ending up homeless, he said.

Before devoting his life to music, the self-described "eclectic, serious and relaxed" student played varsity football and was the president of his fraternity, Pi Kappa Phi. After finishing his presidency, he backed off from the fraternity life and focused on his music.

He isn't always so serious, though. Friend and graduate student Carolina Neves described him as spontaneous.

"We used to play together in our trio and he was asked by me and our cellist to look at us at the same time," Neves said. "He almost dislocated his eye balls. We broke out in laughter for a while and will remember that among many other precious moments forever."

Violinist and graduate student Roberta Franca has worked with and instructed Frieda in the past and described it as a "very, very good experience." She said he is responsible, and he has good performance ideas.

Frieda also described the first time he had ever broken a string, which happened to be in the middle of an audition tape for graduate school, during his best run-through. He chuckled while describing the face he made as the string hit his face and how he had to edit the tape to remove the mishap.

Frieda's girlfriend Briana Bassman said he is big-hearted, and he must be, as he is the oldest of five in his Springfield family.

Frieda was adopted and said he did not know where his musical background came from until he was 21.

"Neither of my parents are musical at all," he said. "My birth mother was musical, which was like a fun little twist. Nobody else in my family has a musical bone in their body, and they were all really kind of shocked when I decided to do it."

He said that coming from a large family and acting as a third parent has taught him patience, which has in turn, helped him with his music.