Carol’s Testimonial

“I started going to the Louisville Academy of Music when I was 5 years old. Both my brothers were taking lessons (Mike on piano and Bobby on trumpet) so I tagged along with my mother and explored the Speed Museum in downtown Louisville. Ruth Scott, as she was known then, introduced herself to my mother. The two of them decided I should start on the piano with Ruth, who was actually the violin teacher as well as a member of the Louisville Orchestra and a pianist, accompanying her students on recitals! The deal was I would study piano until I was 7 or 8 and then I would switch to the violin. I loved looking at her violin sitting on the piano and asked many questions about it and begged her to let me hold it. The Christmas before I turned 8 I received a half sized violin, which I believe had been Ruth's as a young girl. I studied both instruments until I was 10. I took to the violin and through Ruth's patient and excellent teaching blossomed, and dropped the piano so I could concentrate on the violin. When I turned 12 she suggested I go to The Meadowmount School of Music in upstate New York during the summer for 8 weeks of 5 hours a day of concentrated practice. I LOVED it!  After two more summers I was invited to move to New York to study with Ivan Galamian. He was the foremost violin teacher of that generation….so I left Louisville and my life changed forever. I went to Juilliard, graduated with a Master's Degree, got married to Richard Sortomme, a violinist I met at Meadowmount and we started our life together. I decided to audition for the New York Philharmonic in 1977. I won the job, became the first woman in the first violin section, and spent 39 years playing with the greatest colleagues, soloists and conductors in the world. We traveled to almost every continent playing to sold out concert halls and enthusiastic audiences.

The Louisville Academy of Music is an institution to be treasured and valued. Thankfully today it continues to spread the joy of music to all levels of talent, sharing knowledge, teaching discipline and appreciation for the beauty that music adds to our lives.

I am privileged, fortunate and lucky that I started my musical life in Louisville at The Academy of Music.”