STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

Stephen McDougall Graham was 6 when his parents bought him a violin at a garage sale. Initially, he was enamored with it as a beautiful art object.

But, as he began playing it under the tutelage of a charismatic teacher, 7-year-old Stephen fell in love with its warm, lyrical qualities, as well.

Graham tried to push his passion for music aside as his work took him around the world. But, in the end, he found it was a siren call he couldn’t ignore. He quit work to go back to school to study violin. He began playing professionally.

And on Sunday he takes his seat as the new concertmaster of the Wood River Orchestra as they perform a 4 p.m. Holiday Concert at the Church of the Big Wood in Ketchum.

“Having recently moved here, I wanted to get involved in more community organizations,” Graham  said. “It’s a very earnest and dedicated group and I think it’s so important that there is an orchestra in the community. So many people grow up with music and for one reason or another put it aside. But music is good for the brain, good for heart. It provides an opportunity for people get to express themselves in front of friends and family.”

Graham studied music theory and history in college, earning a BA in music and philosophy from Bucknell University where he led the orchestra as concertmaster. But he elected to forgo further music studies, instead earning a master’s degree in Public Policy at Georgetown University.

“The Obama administration was starting and it felt like an exciting time to get involved in public service,” he said.

Eventually, however, Graham decided Washington, D.C., wasn’t where he wanted to be.

“It was a one-industry town. And when I met people, I felt like they were always sizing you up to figure out how they could leverage the relationship to get something of benefit,” he said.

Graham moved to a reproductive and maternal health organization where he worked for six years finding grants as big as $75 million that covered multiple organizations in multiple countries.

“My passport looked really cool. But I ended up traveling to a lot of countries you would never go to on vacation. They were the poorest countries in the world—places like Malawi and Burkina Faso.”

Even though the job was fulfilling, Graham began to miss music and in 2013 decided to return to school.

“I felt I had cheated myself by not pursuing a performance degree,” he said. “I’d been afraid someone would tell me I couldn’t have what was important to me. Finally, I reached the point where it was more difficult to not pursue my passion than to quit my job. I didn’t want to live with regret the rest of my life.”

Graham convinced a professor at Juilliard School of Music to give him an audition. And, when she heard him play, she immediately encouraged him to go back to school. Showing up for the hour-long audition was every bit as terrifying as he’d imagined. But months later he emerged with a Master of Music in classical violin performance from the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College.

“It was an incredible moment of validation. The only thing that can compare is my first date with Naomi, my wife. We met on Shakespeare’s birthday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on what turned out to be a seven-hour first date. I have the same love for her I have for music.”

Studying music was one of the happiest times of Graham’s life. He got up at 5 to practice, went to class, went to work, returned home and practiced again.

“Every time I walked into the music building, it was like it was my birthday,” he said.

Since 2014 Graham has performed regularly with The Chelsea Symphony, including solos of Kablevsky’s Second Concerto and Henri Vieuxtemps’ Concerto No 5. He played on “The Great Northwest” album  featuring members of the indie band Lucius. He played in the Amazon Original series “Mozart in the Jungle.” And he’s performed in pit orchestras for operas and musicals.

He and his wife Naomi McDougall Jones—an actor, film director and author--spent a month in the Hemingway House as The Community Library’s first artist-in-residence in 2019. And in October 2019 he performed Mozart’s Divertimento in E-flat major with Sun Valley Music Festival musicians Rudolph Kremer and Ellen Sanders as a thank you to the community.

“Being able to practice in the Hemingway home, where an incredible artist had done a lot of work, was humbling,” he said.

A few months later, he and Naomi returned to make the Wood River Valley their home.

Graham happily returned to public service as a grants and procurement specialist for Blaine County. He  recently was appointed to the office of County Clerk, Auditor, Recorder and Chief Elections Officer—work he considers a privilege to do.

“I’m my best self when I am able to exercise all my strengths at once, and I’m so pleased to be fortunate enough to live in a community where that is possible,” he said.  

Graham, who just returned from performing a holiday concert with the Chelsea Symphony in New York, met Wood River Orchestra Director Brad Hershey while performing with him at local weddings.

“He’s a great musician and a great leader,” said Hershey. “It makes a big difference to have musicians of his caliber interspersed through the orchestra. And he’s very kind and easy to work with.”

Every violinist loves Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto, Graham said, and he’s particularly fond of Mozart’s Concerto N. 5 for violin, as well.

“Anything in an orchestra setting is fulfilling because you get swept up in the sound,” he said. “It’s just an incredible experience being surrounded by incredible people who are there to support your performance, as you’re there to support theirs.”