Rob Simpson: Musically Minded

In February, Rob Simpson walked into a small office, sat down and tuned his cello. Then he began to play the prelude to Bach’s Suite No. 3 for an audience of one, Professor Carter Enyeart of University of Missouri-Kansas City’s (UMKC) Conservatory of Music and Dance.

In October, Enyeart had told Simpson that his skill level probably wouldn’t gain him a spot at UMKC’s music conservatory or a career in cello at all, but that he would save final judgement for Simpson’s audition in the spring. Following the lesson, Simpson increased his practice time from an hour a day to three, sometimes four, hours a day.

Four months later, Simpson sat in front of the professor he had been tailoring all his practice to, knowing he had to prove him wrong.

He did. Deciding that Simpson’s dedication since their meeting in the fall showed immense improvement, Enyeart accepted him immediately following his audition. As one of two freshman cellists accepted, Simpson will be attending UMKC’s conservatory as a performance major this fall.

As a fourth grader in the Corinth strings program, Simpson says he never would’ve guessed he would pursue a career as a professional cellist. Now a three-year Chamber choir and symphony orchestra member, music has become a part of his life he doesn’t want to leave behind after high school.

Simpson didn’t seriously consider UMKC as an option for college until he went to a chamber music summer camp put on by the university. Because both of his parents work at UMKC and because of the school’s close proximity, he’d never considered it  a plausible option. However, Simpson was impressed by the prestige of the cello program.

“As I started looking at schools and doing research and talking to people it turns out UMKC’s conservatory is in the top 20 in the country,” Simpson said. “One of the better programs within the conservatory is the cello program.”

Simpson says Enyeart compares the rigor of the music program to that of medical school. Every morning at 8 a.m. Simpson will attend music theory classes. Late morning he’ll attend the few non-music classes in his schedule. Early afternoon will be classes like orchestra and chamber music. Somewhere in the midst of this schedule, Simpson must practice three to four hours a day in a practice room alone.

But Simpson is up to the challenge. He’s excited about playing at a college-level with other talented orchestra members, and continuing to grow as a musician so that he can pursue cello in the professional world someday. Ideally, he says, he would love to play for the Kansas City Symphony, but his dream would be performing with the New York Philharmonic.

“I get the question, “You have a perfect ACT score, why are you playing the cello for a living?” a lot,” Simpson said. “My parents always said [I] can do whatever [I] want. I decided I wanted to do cello.”