The Chooi Brothers Take Over Kleinhans

Also The Everly Brothers, Violas, and Gen. Burgoyne’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Kleinhans Hall, Friday May 3, 2024. Violinists Timothy Chooi (standing) and Concertmaster Nikki Chooi to Timothy’s right (seated in Concertmaster’s Chair). Photo by Sara Heidinger, © Sara Heidinger.

Human memory is a funny thing. It includes the big moments - the birth of a child or the death of a loved one - along with the occasional small, forgettable moment somehow retained and later coming to mind, unbidden.

In Summer 1985 I drove from Lawrence, Kansas to Waco, Texas in the company of a young woman with whom I was well acquainted. I recall turquoise toenails on the dash and endless waves of heat radiating from Oklahoma highways.

The car radio’s heady brew of vein-throbbing, bug-eyed, end-times evangelism had exhausted its ability to charm us; I desperately sifted through the spiral cassette display at a truck stop. I managed to dig out The Everly Brothers Greatest Hits and by the time we hit Dallas we sung a passable “All I Have To Is Dream.”

During a…