Making Music at Middleton High
by Emily Gibson
New Middleton High School Band Director Maurice Weatherall has taken an interesting journey to arrive in Hardeman County.
Weatherall was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio to parents Herbert and Mary who worked for Ford Motor Company and Kimberly Clark respectively.
“I was very blessed to grow up in a very stable, two-parent household where both parents made wonderful money,” said Weatherall. “My brother, sister and I never lacked for anything.”
Maurice was first introduced to music in the fourth grade at Moses Cleveland Elementary School when the school’s band director asked his class who wanted to learn an instrument.
Despite the hesitancy of his peers, Weatherall reluctantly raised his hand but was quickly discouraged by his own teacher who did not think Weatherall was ready to be in the band.
One year later, Weatherall’s fifth-grade class was approached by the band director once more, but this time the band director spoke to Weatherall directly, approving him to be in the band and promising to teach him how to play an instrument of her choice, specifically, the oboe.
Maurice was given a picture of the instrument and instructed to show it to the man behind the counter in the music store; however, Weatherall did accordingly, only to find out the closest thing to an oboe the store carried at the time was a clarinet; thus, the clarinet would have to do.
“I’ll never forget it,” said Weatherall. “I walked into class the following Monday, and the band director, who was so excited she was going to have an oboe player, sees me whip out this clarinet, and she is very disappointed.”
After a moment of anger, Weatherall’s instructor calmed down, and his clarinet lessons began.
“Everybody else was sitting there in band, and they were squeaking and squawking and couldn’t get a note out, but from the moment I put it in my mouth, I was moving my fingers up and down and playing all kinds of notes,” said Weatherall. “I was only having fun, but it came naturally.”
After one year, Weatherall’s sixth-grade teacher called his parents and encouraged them to put Weatherall in private lessons because he was already advanced beyond what she could teach him.
“My dad made some phone calls and got me hooked up with probably one of the largest at that time and still one of the largest community music schools in the nation called the Cleveland Music School Settlement,” said Weatherall.
Weatherall received clarinet lessons there up until the twelfth grade at John F. Kennedy High School, during which time Weatherall performed in solo and ensemble contests every year, was accepted into the All-City Orchestra as second seat in the ninth grade, granted first seat in tenth grade, received lessons from the second seat clarinetist in the Cleveland Orchestra, was accepted into the All City Band, the North East Ohio Regional Orchestra, and the American Youth Symphony, and finally was accepted into the Cleveland Institute of Music Youth Orchestra as principal second seat.
“It didn’t hit me, but it was starting to when that happened,” said Weatherall. “I decided this is what I’m going to do, and it just took off from there.”
Upon completing high school, Weather attended the University of Akron for one year during which time he was selected to represent all of the woodwinds at the school’s honors recital, a privilege only the best musicians at the school are selected for.
Weatherall transferred to the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music where he hit another playing level and decided to go on and acquire his Master’s in clarinet at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.
“I found out that the first clarinet teacher that I had at the University of Akron was now teaching at the University of North Carolina, so we hooked back up, and my playing just kept getting more refined,” said Weatherall.
At the age of 21, Weatherall was officially ready to audition for the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, and to no surprise, Weatherall not only won the contest and made second seat as clarinetist, but was also the youngest member to have done so.
Toward the end of grad school in the fall of 1983, Weatherall was approached by an oboe professor who encouraged him to audition for the United States Army Field Band from Washington, DC, in the spring.
Weatherall said he quickly turned down the idea because he had no desire to go into the Army nor through the physical and mental training such would ensure, but after giving the audition some thought, Weatherall decided he should at least try and thus began his preparations.
Over the course of four months, Weatherall learned 60 different musical pieces including a particularly difficult piece his teacher warned him about, having toured in the marine band himself.
“Audition day comes, I fly up to Washington D.C., and there are 45 to 50 people standing in the hallway warming up,” said Weatherall. “The dream ends here, I thought.”
He would soon think differently.
Weatherall made it through three audition rounds to the final round where only he and a girl from Minnesota, second seat for the Minnesota Symphony, had advanced.
“We went five rounds, and they still couldn’t make a decision, so they gave us a really hard piece,” said Weatherall. “I looked at it, and it was the piece I had been warned about; the one I had practiced for four months.”
“I put that clarinet in my mouth, and I just played the fire out of it,” added Weatherall.
One week later, Weatherall was back at work and preparing for a doctoral program in musical arts when he received a phone call informing him the military police were looking for him.
“Two guys came in there with papers from Washington D.C, so I opened up the envelope and therein was written, ‘Congratulations, you are now a member of the United States Army Field Band, the elite touring ensemble of the Department of the Army,’” said Weatherall. “I beat out over 50 of the best clarinetists in the United States at 23 years old, and now there were orders telling me I needed to go to basic training in eight days for 11 weeks, report to the unit, and then get myself back into playing shape for a tour in the spring.”
Upon completing his training, Weatherall later discovered he was the youngest African American to ever be in a presidential band.
“I was in there for five years and traveled all over the world,” said Weatherall.
While on tour, Weatherall made a point to visit every music college or school they traveled near as to make connections and potentially pursue a teaching career after the military, but when Weatherall visited the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, he quickly came to the conclusion that Berklee was where he wanted to teach.
Little did he know at the time, his desire would be granted sooner than he expected.
“About a year after we were in Boston, I’m looking through the chronicle of higher education in the job section, and there's a big ad by Berklee College of Music hiring for director of residence life/ residence life coordinator and instructor of music,” said Weatherall.
Weatherall met all of the qualifications and desired the position, but he had just reenlisted for another four years in the army, so he contacted Berklee with his dilemma, and in turn they requested an interview with him.
“I get there, and I’m walking around and I see Billy Joel among other well-established artists who were either students or teachers there at the time,” said Weatherall. “They asked me every kind of question you could imagine about housing, and after we got through, they said they wanted me to have the job.”
Nearly four weeks later, Weatherall was officially offered the position and went to work trying to figure out how in the world he would tour with the army and teach at Berklee.
“I find out that I can get out of my enlistment contract if I find in the uniform code of military justice where it says that if you find a job the military has prepared you for and it’s in the civilian world, you can be released from the contract and receive an honorable discharge,” said Weatherall. “The uniform code of military justice is nearly 100 volumes, so every day after work, I would sit in the library just scanning.”
“I had gone through about 50 or 60 volumes when I finally found something which stated exactly that!” added Weatherall.
The next day, Weatherall went to the post commander and requested the application paperwork, but the commander merely laughed at him and said the exemption had only been given to one person since WW2.
Nevertheless, Weatherall was given the paperwork and despite his conductor’s disapproval, he completed it and mailed it to the Department of the Army.
Two months later, Weatherall is called into the colonel’s office and asked why an envelope from the Secretary of the Army had arrived for him.
“I open it up, and there was written, ‘Congratulations.” said Weatherall. “It was this long letter, and at the bottom it said, ‘I told you I would remember your name, signed by the Secretary of the Army.”
Two years prior, Weatherall had performed at the Kennedy Center after which upon coming off the stage he was met by the Secretary of the Army who was passing by and stopped to say hi.
“He asked me what my name was and after I told him, he said he wouldn’t forget it,” added Weatherall. “Well, he remembered me.”
Weatherall stayed with Berklee for four years until 1993 when he moved to Mississippi to help his parents who were taking care of their own parents at the time.
“That’s where the fun ended,” said Weatherall. “With all of this education and experience, nobody would hire me.”
Upon encountering car complications, Weatherall went to the bank for a loan, and while there, he was encouraged by the guy he spoke with to get an education in Mississippi if he wanted to obtain a job.
“He said, look, you were born in Cleveland, Ohio, you moved here from Boston, you don’t have any ties to this community, and this is a very community-oriented area that doesn’t know you, and that’s why you’re struggling,” recalled Weatherall.
Weatherall already had a Master’s degree, but decided to follow the man’s advice and went to Ole Miss to pursue a Master of Music in Clarinet Performance, during which time Weatherall also joined and eventually began conducting the Corinth Symphony.
“I had no more than finished that degree, and the phone started ringing,” said Weatherall. “Once people saw that I wasn’t just somebody from up north coming down here to make fun of Mississippians, but was actually going to stay here, they went ahead and started investing in me.”
From 1995 up until fall of last year, Weatherall served as Adjunct Professor at Ole Miss and as of this year is going on his twentieth year as director of the Corinth Symphony which he said has been his greatest joy o far.
Weatherall had plans to spend the next year as a student at Ole Miss while he finished his second doctorate degree
“I was going to use this year to just walk around campus with my backpack and sweats on and be a 63-year-old student,” said Weatherall. “But a buddy of mine called me this summer, and said Middleton was looking for a band director.”
Weatherall, though hesitant at first and unfamiliar with the town of Middleton, sent in his application, was interviewed, and given the position of Band Director for the Middleton elementary, middle, and high school level bands.
“I truly believe that God led me here and in particular to this job,” said Weatherall.
Despite having lost both his mother and his father in June and July of this year, Weatherall said he is thankful to have something that keeps him busy, and he knows this is what his mom wanted for him.
“One of the last things she remembers is me telling her I have this job, and she was so happy that I would get to work with one more band program before retiring,” said Weatherall.
Weatherall will balance his time between directing the Middleton bands during the week and directing the Corinth Symphony on the weekends, all while finishing his PhD at Ole Miss, and he said his plan is to stay at Middleton and invest in the band program for as long as he can.
“The plan for the band for this year is to train them using my teaching methods as well as to eventually grow this program because I don't see why this band shouldn’t be up to around 80-100 students,” said Weatherall.“The potential is unmeasurable.”