Sylvia was, by turns, my friend, my mentor, my sponsor. I met her as I was leaving one life as a meditator and beginning another as a musician. Our conversations were interesting because she wanted to talk about life and meaning and I wanted to talk about music. I learned a lot from her, not just by her answers to my questions, but by listening to and watching her play and by becoming her page turner for her own performances. She encouraged my musical direction, even though she could never quite grasp the phenomenon of improvisation. She was a great composer, but to compose in the moment, in the flow, spontaneously was something that just plain stopped her mind. I tried to get her going with some simple blues structures, but her compositional concepts and analytical mind were a formidable barrier...so less of our time was spent with that and more with just listening...to Beethoven particularly (which she would often annotate for me), but also to Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, and Grateful Dead. She came to especially enjoy the Dead. And the sponsorship -- once she realized I was pretty damn serious about just doing music she hired me to run (set up, record, liaison, etc) her House Concert series and hired me to drive her to her two orchestra rehearsals each week (she was not a great driver and did not like to drive after dark). She and Fred also hired me to drive the two of them and Jim to visit friends and family in Texas a couple of years in a row. With all that I was able to let go of my construction job in Crestone and focus on the music and whatever gigs I could scrounge at the time (my rent was only $400 then). Later, when I moved to Denver, I was able to do so because of the friendships I had made with string player friends of hers who performed regularly in Crestone and at the Central City Opera where she went each summer (see 2nd video for more info); I stayed in their guest bedroom for a month before finding my own affordable place and I am forever grateful to them and especially to Sylvia for enabling that to happen. 

Later, when she was in Washington, I was able to come visit her a few springs and autumns. We would sit and not say anything for long periods, holding hands. In the first visits I brought my melodica to play tunes for her, but the last couple of visits Steve had installed a keyboard so I played that.  On one visit she was particularly animated and talked about her past in the light of music, her struggles to teach herself, her first teacher whom she didn't really like, college composition, etc. 

I love her lots, my friend Sylvia Jean.

BLACK HAWK RAIN — This one was written for her birthday in 2008 while in Black Hawk staying with some string player friends of hers who were in the pit at the Central City Opera. We spent the week with them seeing each opera (3?4?, can’t recall how many). I wrote the A section in the morning of her birthday and the bridge and last 8 after the opera on the piano in the house where we were staying. Part of the gift was her ability to watch me compose the piece. On one of the days of that week she played Beethoven's Adagio from the Pathétique for me at the piano. it blew my mind. I cried hard. 

This recording features some of Denver's finest: Gabe Mervine on Flugelhorn, Kim Bird on Bass, and Mark Emmons on drums.

I met Sylvia after she moved to Crestone when she signed up for art classes at my art studio. She came to my studio every week to create an oil pastel drawing at each art session. She is one of the few students who went through my art class course book several times. We loved drawing together in the studio. Then after a few years, with the Sylvia's help, I began teaching oil painting classes at Sylvia's Music House. Five or six students would show up for class and they would paint together.  

Over the years Sylvia created many oil pastel drawings and oil paintings which she exhibited in the yearly Art Student Show at my studio. I will post photos of her work in the art shows. I wish I had taken more photos, but we didn't have iPhones in those days.

Sylvia loved creating her artwork and she published a book of her work.

I cherish the time I had with her in the studio, working together to create our personal expressions.

Sylvia was my first piano teacher. I was an excited 10-year-old who loved music and had been singing in the Crestone Community Choir, but I always wanted to learn piano and had never had the opportunity.

Sylvia was always encouraging, even when I didn't practice enough--nurturing my curiosity, nurturing my creativity, and making her studio feel like a home where I could grow and explore under her guidance. She introduced me to Bach, Schubert, Clementi. She made me fall in love with K.331. She invited me to all the recital artists she hosted, and even convinced them to program pieces I wanted to hear.

After I moved away for high school and became serious about singing, she accompanied me for benefit recitals when I needed to raise money for summer festivals, always poo-pooing her ability to play the tricker pieces I threw her way before she then played them with beauty and skill. I went on to get two degrees in music, which took me to another country where I fell in love and put down roots, and after Sylvia left Crestone, we sadly lost touch.

But the minute I think of her, I'm transported back to the Hazlerig Music House on Alpine Overlook, the feel of the tile under my feet, the smell of the wood, the touch of her Steinway and her harpsichord. I hear her voice and I see her lesson notes in my notebook and the fingerings she added in my scores, always crossing out the fourth finger markings and writing in the third. And I hear her soft, kind voice, occasionally exasperated, always passionate, welcoming me into a world of art and joy and beauty.

She treated me like I was an artist and an equal, even when I was 10 and learning to identify middle C. She gave me confidence at an age and stage where I had very little of it. I may never have had a chance to put it to her in these words, but she was an incredible friend and mentor. I would not be who I am today were it not for her presence in my life.

I posted the following on Monday, April 7th, 2025:

[I didn't post about this until now because I didn't want people coming up to me all weekend to offer condolences. I know they think it's the appropriate thing to do, but when I am working at faire, I am playing a character, and that character is a musician 20 years younger than I am who is not in pain (physical or emotional), has not a care in the world, and who slept in a Holiday Inn Express. People offering condolences makes it twice as hard to remain in character. I would appreciate it if no one would mention this matter at faire this coming weekend or the weekend after.]

At about 3 A.M. last Saturday, I woke up to a message from my brother informing me that our mother had passed away.

She was 90 years old. She led a long, mostly good, life. Over the last several years, she'd experienced a lot of physical and then mental decline; when I called on my birthday a month ago, I realized that the mother I had loved and admired was no longer present. It was just her body holding on. So in a way, it was a relief to know that she was no longer suffering.

I made the decision not to tell anyone at faire. My mother was a performer and an artist. On the day I was due to be born, she was sitting backstage at a theater, transcribing by hand an orchestral score for musical comedy she composed. She knew that the show must go on.

On Sunday before cannon, after I tuned my mandola, I sat in the Three Stags singing "Another Turning Point" to no one as the tears finally came. Some years ago, my sister had organized a birthday party for our mother in the town where she was born, and we performed that song for her--my sister singing, my nephew playing guitar, my niece playing bass, and me on the fiddle.

It was my mother who introduced me to music. In my elementary years, she spent every weekday afternoon and most of Saturday tirelessly teaching little fingers to play the piano. As I moved into middle school, she completed her MA and got a job teaching music at the college level. When I was in sixth-grade, she tried out on me all the listening assignments she gave the Music Appreciation 101 class. Though the class listened only to act one of Die Walkure, we sat night after night and listened to the whole thing. Years later, she and I would attend the entire Ring Cycle in Seattle; we reprised the trip with Joyce Hazlerig and one of my mom's boyfriends on a later iteration.

When I got interested in playing fiddle, not just violin, she transcribed a country song for me to learn; before long, I was figuring out tunes by ear. We played fiddle music together the whole time I was growing up. A published composer, she understood harmony better than I, and she never balked at playing second fiddle so that I could play the melody. When she visited me at Excalibur Fantasy Faire, I coaxed her onto stage at the Pub Sing to play John Ryan's Polka with us.

Many people decline in retirement, but she thrived. By then, she and my father had parted ways. She moved to Colorado with two of her paramours, where she built the Hazlerig Music House and hosted concerts. Some musicians I've met at faire had already played there when I met them.

She and her paramours took many cruises, seeing the world and enjoying a good life. My mother always took a sketch book with her, as in her retirement, she had decided to explore visual art, a medium she had always eschewed to focus on music. I have several of her paintings, as well as two of her violins.

There are so many things I could say about her. She lived boldly despite her fears and anxieties. I know so many people have problematic relationships with their parents, but I hit the jackpot with mine. Like my father, she was a great teacher, who touched many lives, encouraged many people. 

When I was about ten years old, I said what a lot of children say, "Mom, I'm bored."

My mother said, "You need to learn music. You'll never be bored again because you'll be too busy practicing."

So I started piano lessons. My mother was the best piano teacher in town, so I would gather my music books, walk to the front door, and call out, "Mom, I'm going to my piano lesson now."

I'd step out the door, wait a few seconds, then turn around and ring the doorbell. My piano teacher would answer, and I would say, "Mrs. Hazlerig, I'm here for my piano lesson."

We would repeat a similar ritual at the end of the lesson. My mom would ask me how the lesson went, and I would tell her as though she hadn't been there.

Later, I took up the violin. Mrs. Hazlerig gave me my first lessons, but she soon sent me to her friend who was the best violin teacher in town.

Eventually, I got interested in fiddling, and she listened to a song I wanted to learn the fiddle part for, figured it out by ear, and wrote it down so I could learn it. Before long, I was figuring out music by ear, and the two of us played fiddle music together. Understanding music theory better than I--after all, she holds a Master's in Composition and is a published composer--she would play chordal accompaniments and counter-points, literally playing second-fiddle to support her son's passion.

When I was in college and a bit beyond, every time we met up for a holiday, I would ask her to re-explain the musical modes to me until I finally got it. Her boyfriend Fred got really tired of hearing us geek out about music theory; he would make quips about "The Picture of Dorian Mode."

She once told me that she felt guilty that she wasn't a better housekeeper. I told her that didn't matter. At a funeral, it's far more interesting to hear, "She was a great musician, and every Christmas Eve, we gathered around the piano to sing carols," than "Well, she sure kept a clean house."

Before I was born, my parents organized a recorder group. At one point, they had two in each voice and could play Bach organ pieces.

One evening, my parents told my elder siblings to put on shoes and make themselves presentable, as they were expecting dinner guests.

My sister, Susan Hazlerig Hazelmann, asked if the guests would be bringing their recorders. When she was told that they didn't have recorders, my sister said, "But *everyone* has recorders!"

Anyway, my mother composed works for the recorder, an instrument with a mostly medieval to baroque repertoire.

Around 1990, I was thumbing through music books in a booth at Scarborough Faire, and I found a collection of period tunes for the soprano recorder, which I nabbed because the soprano recorder and the fiddle have a similar range.

The back cover of the book had a list of other titles from the same publisher. Much to my surprise, one of the titles listed was by Sylvia Hazlerig--my mother.

Bio for a concert program of Sylvia's Music.

Laredoan Sylvia Hazlerig began composing at the age of thirteen. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Composition and Theory from the University of North Texas, and a Master of Arts in Music from Central Missouri State University. After a long career teaching music at Laredo Community College, she retired in 1997 to the mountains of Colorado, and then moved to Bellevue, Washington in 2010. She remains active as a performing musician and composer. She has composed around 70 works, mostly chamber music for strings, recorders, winds and brasses, as well as piano and harpsichord solos and a few songs and choral works. Her Trio for recorders was published by BMI, Canada in 1964. She composed the scores for a staged musical production, The Haunted House, at Texas Tech University in 1967, and a children’s musical, Prince Corky, in Laredo in 1992. In 2007, she issued a limited edition 13-CD set of all her recorded compositions. Her catalog of works which are available on IMSLP continues to grow, thanks to the work of editor Michel Rondeau.

Ms. Hazlerig has dedicated life to furthering music in Laredo, especially through her work at Laredo Community College as a music instructor, and as performer with a myriad of Laredo ensembles including the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra. When a full-time four year music program was finally established at Texas A & M International University, she lent a hand and heart to this effort (even though, by this time, she had already retired to Colorado). She generously sponsored faculty recitals and student performances at her Colorado Music House festivals over many years, and donated the Zuckerman harpsichord to the TAMIU music department, to name but just a few.

Sylvia Hazlerig will perform her own works at the piano in a Concert on March 28 at 7:30PM at the TAMIU Fine and Performing Center for the Arts Recital Hall. In addition to playing several piano compositions as well as chamber pieces, she will comment on each of the works. Some of her pieces will be performed in conjunction with TAMIU faculty members, Dr. Friedrich Gechter, pianist, Dr. Susan Berdahl, flutist and Dr. Xiaohu Zhou, bassoonist. The program will feature two delightful works, conceived by Ms. Hazlerig, in honor of the City of Laredo and appropriately based on the musical motif “La-Re –Do.”