How a broken cello changed a Petaluma music teacher’s life for the better

When Michael Fecskes closes his eyes, he can still hear the severe “pop” sound his expensive cello made when it fell to the floor.

“I’ll see it happen again,” Fecskes said. “When I replay it in my mind, a sound will involuntarily come out of my mouth.”

The 32-year-old cellist was teaching at an after school music program in Sonoma late September 2018 when what he politely calls “classroom commotion” sent his instrument toppling. Before he could react, the $16,000 cello he purchased only a month prior landed face-down, forcing pressure at just the right spot to cause an explosive crack nearly end to end.

In an instant, Fecskes, who first picked up the string instrument in grade school 23 years ago and also teaches in Petaluma, was without a cello.

But the professional musician’s distressing classroom accident would soon lead him to experiences and opportunities he never anticipated, including a new job and a rallying of support from friends and fans across Sonoma County. In under a month, a Go Fund Me account his friend launched has amassed more than $6,000 in donations to help the musician recoup the $8,000 cost of intensive repairs. One hundred people throughout Sonoma County have contributed so far, most donating about $50.

“I think this campaign took off so quickly because of people’s genuine appreciation for Michael’s gift,” said the fund’s creator Lucky Clark in an email. “Most everyone who knows Michael has heard him play cello in some setting and anyone who hears him is in awe of his talents.”

Fecskes has been playing the cello since he was in fourth grade, and began tutoring others when he was 13. The Sonoma High School graduate went on to Sonoma State University to study cello performance, and worked as a professional musician in San Francisco and New York City before moving back to Sonoma County in 2017. He now teaches music to more than 300 students between the after school program at El Verano Elementary in Sonoma and as a music teacher for Live Oak Charter School in Petaluma.

Fecskes is now reunited with his cello after months of extensive repairs, grateful for the support by a groundswell of generous friends and neighbors. But in those first few hours after the incident, he felt like he couldn’t catch a break.

“I think I was still in shock,” Fecskes said, laughing at the absurdity of his bad luck. “I unpacked things into my car in a daze, and I put the fingerboard on the roof of my car. As I drove away, I heard a slide and a clank, clank from my windows. Directly behind me was a garbage truck, and it ran over it.”

Although he can see the humor in it now more than a year on, it was an insult to injury.

When master maker and restorer Anthony Lane looked at the cracked cello with a missing fingerboard in his workshop off Liberty Road in Petaluma, he asked, “are you sure you really want this fixed?”

Fecskes was sure, entrusting the wreckage to the same man who performed his first cello tuning while a student at Sonoma High School years ago.

So the delicate process began, taking Lane more than three months of careful work to mend the crack, maintain the instrument’s integrity, replace missing pieces and smooth the varnish so perfectly that it looked as good as new. Lane, a 41-year veteran of his craft, even employed physics to carefully measure the vibrations within the instrument, working to capture the same sounds that Fecskes connected with when he first chose the instrument.

“The challenge is to get it to sound as good, or better, than it sounded before,” Lane said. “He bought it because he likes its sound, so that’s really the most important goal.”

The cello sat in Lane’s workshop for approximately a year as Fecskes scraped together thousands of dollars to spring it, finally reuniting with his beloved instrument this past December.

But it’s not the only thing he received through Anthony Lane.

Upon reconnecting with Lane and the interconnected community of string musicians in the area, Fecskes also discovered Live Oak Charter School was looking for a music teacher. He began the position February 2019, taking on teaching full time as the school’s music director. He considers it the most rewarding point of his career so far.

“I realized if I had never broken this cello, I would have never reconnected with the Lane workshop, met these 200 students in Petaluma, and gotten this job,” Fecskes said. “It’s all because of the cello.”

(Contact Kathryn Palmer at kathryn.palmer@arguscourier.com, on Twitter @KathrynPlmr.)