BU Today feature: Father, Son/Teacher, Pupil
This article was originally published on June 22, 2020. Video by Devin Hahn. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck Boston, sending students home for remote learning for the remainder of the semester, most students had to forego face-to-face meetings with their professors and make do with Zoom. Not School of Music trumpet performance major Peter Everson, however. Turns out one of his professors happens to be his father. Terry Everson, a College of Fine Arts associate professor of trumpet performance, is a renowned trumpet soloist, conductor, and composer who has appeared with some of the world’s greatest orchestras, including the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops (he routinely appears in the Pops annual Fourth of July concerts on the Boston Esplanade).
Peter grew up the only child of two musicians. His mom, Lori, is a violinist. His parents insisted he play an instrument at least through high school. After early stints with the piano (he started lessons at four) and violin, he settled on his father’s instrument. But when he switched to trumpet, it wasn’t his dad who taught him. He never liked practicing, he says, but loved performing, and playing in front of other people helped keep him interested in music through the end of high school.
When it came time for college, Peter decided to pursue his passion for coding, enrolling at Worcester Polytechnic Institute as a computer science major. But he continued to play trumpet in various bands and ensembles at school and pretty soon realized he wanted to pursue a career in music.
When he transferred to BU after freshman year, he and his dad suddenly had a new relationship: teacher and pupil.