My name is Arthleen (Little) Spalding. I was born in Austin, Texas. My father was a printer and my mother was a secretary. I guess if you had to ‘classify’ our family it would be lower middle class – which is to say money was very rarely spent on luxuries. Some time in the last 50s when I was about 10 years old my mother bought (or may have been given) two tickets to a Van Cliburn concert in Austin, Texas. My piano playing sister was not able to go – so the blessing came my way. That was the first classical music I had ever heard and to this day I get choked up with the emotion of that evening. Thank you Mr. Cliburn for one of the sweetest memories of my life.
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