In the Del Mar Heights home of Anna and Peter Clausner, the living room serves as a practice studio for the couple's three double bass-playing sons: Arik, who turns 19 Tuesday; Ronny, 17; and Henry, 14.
SCOTT LINNETT / Union-Tribune
From left, Arik, Ronny and Henry Clausner rehearsed on the double bass at home in August. Arik started school at Dartmouth this fall.
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But with Arik away at school – he's a freshman at New Hampshire's Dartmouth College – the living room is now a little less crowded. And Arik's younger siblings miss the brotherly camaraderie that includes music.
"It's so different without him around," Ronny says. "We're not just brothers, we're best friends. If one of us was having trouble learning a part, we'd help each other. Or if one of us was nervous before a performance, we'd make each other feel better."
"He's someone to look up to," Henry adds. "He was always better than me, so I tried to be more like him."
As much as the boys miss their older brother during their first school year without him, they know the show must go on. Today, they'll perform in the San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory's 10th Annual Celebration of Music Education, slated for 4 p.m. at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.
DATEBOOK
San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory's 10th Annual Celebration of Music Education
4 p.m. today; California Center for the Arts, Escondido; 340 N. Escondido Blvd., Escondido; (619) 233-3232; tickets are available at the door
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The program includes excerpts from Dvorak's Symphony No. 8, with Ronny performing in the orchestra's bass section, and instrumental arrangements from Bizet's "Carmen," which will include Henry.
It's Ronny's third year with the Youth Symphony and Henry's second. Arik had been a member for three years before he left.
"They've all done an outstanding job," says artistic director Jeff Edmons, who will conduct the concert. "They represent all the attributes that are so important to the Youth Symphony – dedication, leadership, kindness and love of classical music."
The brothers were born in Frankfurt, Germany, where their mother, a physician, and father, a computer engineer, were then working. The boys and their Polish-born parents moved to San Diego in 1995 and settled into their present home five years later. The three children became students at La Jolla Country Day School and enthusiastic participants in its music program.
Though the brothers experimented with a variety of instruments, Arik discovered the double bass at school and his brothers soon followed. Their height made them well-suited to the largest and lowest-pitched member of the string family. Arik is currently 6-foot-7, Ronny is 6-foot-3, and Henry is 5-11 and growing.
Yet they were most attracted to its timbre and versatility.
"It's such a great instrument. You can play classical music, jazz or rock," Ronny says.
"I love the sound – it's so deep," says Henry who, like his brother, plays in the school orchestra in addition to the Youth Symphony. "It adds so much to the sound of the orchestra."
Ronny and Henry study privately with local teacher Erik Johnson, and Arik – who will return home for the holidays – plans to join Dartmouth's chamber orchestra.
Though the teenagers don't plan to pursue music as a career, they expect it to remain a passion.
"I can see us living near each other when we grow up and having music as a hobby," Ronny says.
"We could still get together and play," Henry adds. "That would be really great."
Valerie Scher: (619) 293-1038;
valerie.scher@uniontrib.com
