

He worked there as the weekend Meteorologist for nine months before coming to Western Mass. Shortly after graduation he landed his first weather job at the ABC affiliate in Binghamton, N.Y. Having never left the Boston area, he packed up his bags and headed to Mississippi State University where he received his masters in Geosciences with a concentration in Meteorology. It was then that Dan decided to go back to school for Meteorology. After working in the "real world" for a few years, he realized he would not be happy professionally unless he was working in weather. However, it was a long road from his young days of pretending to be a weatherman in his parent's basement, where he would set up his "weather center" to being an on-air meteorologist on Western Mass News.ĭan grew up in Lynn and graduated from Salem State University. Of course, this storm will forever be known as the 'Blizzard of '78' and from that time on, Dan was hooked.Īs a boy growing up in the Boston area, he would track everything from a feeble sea breeze to a potential blizzard.

At the time, Dan Brown was only four years old, but even at such a young age, he remembers being excited for the anticipation of the prospects of a huge snowstorm. They were a little bit concerned about us bringing food inside, but we explained that this is not food that is going to be eaten.” He paused, and smiled.It was early February 1978 and weather forecasters were predicting a Nor'easter to barrel up the coast. “We had a little bit of an incident,” he said, “It is an old building. Stuckenbruck addressed the delay in coming onstage. The members of the orchestra stayed for a few hours, making instruments for children beneath the tent.Īs he sliced into a long zucchini stem to make a violin, Mr. Afterward, under a tent in the yard, Dana said, “It was a very interesting experience, definitely.” Emily knocked two coconuts together and Dana slapped a hollowed-out squash with a lemongrass switch. Stuckenbruck rubbed cabbage leaves to the beat. Then the orchestra broke into “Ain’t No Sunshine.” The twins played a daikon and a squash. Stuckenbruck said, introducing the final song. “We are blessed with today’s weather,” Mr. He and his wife, a pianist, moved to Long Island in the 1980s, and he created the first Vegetable Orchestra at the Waldorf School of Garden City around 2005. He attended a Waldorf school - which favors hands-on learning - and moved to New York in his 20s to play violin and saw he played the saw with the New York Philharmonic this spring. Stuckenbruck was born in Stuttgart, Germany, the son of a saw player. “We can do it better.”Ī smear of orange vegetable matter had stuck to his sheet music. “Let’s do it again,” he said, as they sat in the broiling sun. Her father’s patience was perhaps the key to the continued existence of the Vegetable Orchestra. You’re shaving holes down, making holes bigger, shoving stuff in to make the pitch different.” “You have to think while you’re playing,” said Ms. In comparison, she said, playing vegetables was “very unpredictable.” Stuckenbruck’s daughter, Erin, the fourth player, was trained on traditional instruments. In this weather, the instruments would soon grow soft and the mouthpieces gummy, or they might dry out. But the temperature hovered around 90 and the day was windless, and as they played the Bach chorale, they were racing against time. “Feel it, it’s wet,” said Daniel Battaglia, 37, holding out his butternut squash French horn. The instruments had been kept in ice water so they would stay crisp.
