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Sunday, June 4, 2023

Conversations at the Culver with Riverside Author Dan Bernstein

1:30-3:00 PM

Inlandia Institute and UCR Arts Present

Barbara and Art Culver Center of the Arts

3834 Main Street, Riverside

On Sunday, June 4, Riverside Press-Enterprise columnist and author Dan Bernstein will join Inlandia and UCR ARTS for “Conversations at the Culver” to discuss his latest book, He Kept His Day Job: Fanfare for the Common Musician. The program will begin at 1:30 PM at the Barbara and Art Culver Center of the Arts, 3834 Main Street, in downtown Riverside.

This event is free and open to the public. Books will be available for sale and signing.

He Kept His Day Job, described by one reviewer as a “love letter” disguised as a memoir, takes readers on a musical joy ride through bumpy, challenging and exhilarating terrain: the hate-to-practice years, “frightfully flat” solo contests, high school bands, and orchestras, Stanford’s purported “marching band,” an adult community college jazz band, a perfect-chemistry brass quintet, an assisted-living center in Oregon and a Riverside hospital’s ICU and oncology units where Bernstein played for patients and harried staff. This is where the idea for this book was born. Though just one small story, this “Fanfare for the Common Musician” is meant to be contagious, inspiring young musicians to keep playing and adults, particularly those with day jobs, to take their instruments, tap shoes and paint brushes out of the attic and fall in love all over again.

Dan Bernstein got his first blat out of a trombone when he was in fourth grade. Now in his seventies, the retired newspaper columnist who lives in Riverside, California, is still playing his ax – still for little or no money at all.