Profiles

Healing America with Music

With music an integral part of her life since early childhood, Margaret “Meg” Johnson Thomas ’60 feels privileged, in the wake of the events of September 11, to use her talents to help heal the wounded spirits of the victims’ families and friends. As a 25-year member of the first violin section of the John F. Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, Thomas performs regularly for all ballets at the Center and with the Washington Opera. Thus, she took part in “A Concert for America” on September 24, attended by the mourning families of the Pentagon victims, First Lady Laura Bush, and Senator Edward Kennedy.

“It was an enriching experience —one that allowed participants and recipients alike to focus on the many emotions of music and to feel its healing powers,” Thomas says. Raised in a musical family herself, she is a firm believer in the ability of music to feed the soul and nurture the spirit, and she delights in inspiring others to invite such a gift into their lives.

Thomas has devoted herself to the violin since the age of 7, putting it aside only while raising her three children. During the past three decades, she served as a 17-year concertmaster of the Fairfax Symphony, a teacher, and a member of a string quartet.
Thomas says that other Oberlin alumni involved in “A Concert for America” included Lora McDonald Ferguson ’63, Milton Stevens ’64, Bill Foster ’66, J. Reilly Lewis ’67, soloist Denyce Graves ’85, Daniel Foster ’91, Kathryn Meany ’92, and Eugene Mondie ’92.

—Jacquelyn Davis ’02