For the love of music: Paul and Randolyn Emerson found common ground as romance blossoms at Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra

As Randolyn Emerson was auditioning for the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra, the conductor forgot to post a sign alerting visitors to his office that he should not be disturbed.
In walks her future husband, Paul, wanting to ask the conductor a question just as Randolyn put her bow on the strings of her violin.
“On the hardest piece on the audition list,” says Randolyn. “I could’ve killed him! That jerk.”
Paul was shocked and embarrassed. His pale cheeks turned pink.
“’I hope I didn’t affect her audition,’ I thought. I felt this tall,” said Paul, demonstrating an inch between his finger and thumb.
But the conductor told Randolyn that she was in and that she should sit in the front of the second violins.
“We’ll get you in the first violins eventually,” the conductor told Randolyn.
As Randolyn sat in her seat fuming, she looked toward the viola section at Paul, the man who had interrupted her audition. Paul was reaching for his viola and looked over his glasses just as the stage lights illuminated his blue eyes.
“Well, at least the jerk has nice eyes,” Randolyn thought.
“That’s how the whole thing began,” Paul said with a grin.
Paul and Randolyn Emerson have been married for 33 years. Spend just a minute with the couple, and you’ll sense the love they have for each other, warming your heart like the rich sound of a cello.
Both are professional musicians born into families with impressive musical pedigrees. Randolyn has been with the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra for nine years. She met Paul when he was working as a part-time administrative assistant with the orchestra.
Each of them has traveled the world playing for music-loving audiences.
Randolyn is a native of Salt Lake City. Her mother was a member of the world-renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir, so music runs in her DNA.
“That was a wonderful musical introduction,” says Randolyn with a smile. “I can remember in the summertime, she would take me to the rehearsals and I would walk around Temple Square. I could come into the tabernacle where they rehearse. I got to go up and sit in the seats, and I sat next to my mother. One of the other ladies handed me a book. Here I am, 10 years old, and I’m singing ‘The Hallelujah Chorus’ with the tabernacle choir. I loved it.”
Randolyn’s mother got to sing around the world, including at the 1965-66 World’s Fair in New York City and in Japan and Latin America.
“She had these great opportunities and would come back and tell us about them. Just what a wonderful environment to have someone in that caliber of musical institution.”
Randolyn had herself been singing for audiences at the age of 2, but it was the discovery of her mother’s violin that changed Randolyn’s life.
As an 8-year-old, she found an odd-looking case in the back of her mother’s closet.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Get it out and I’ll show you,” her mother said.
“She opened up the case, and that was it. I saw that rickety old violin and I fell in love,” says Randolyn. “I still have it.”
Randolyn was a natural fit like a bow to a violin. Her mother dreaded the awful sounds that usually come from someone learning to play the violin, but that never happened.
“You never squawked,” her mother said.
Before there was a music program at Randolyn’s elementary school, her teacher put on vinyl records for the children to listen to during music time. One day, the teacher put on Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.”
Randolyn played an air violin, and several classmates joined in.
“I started at first, and then there were five or six joining in. We were pretending to play the music. Someone was doing the trumpets and some the French horns, and I was doing the violin and all the runs,” she says with a smile recalling the sweet memory.
Not long after, the school added a music curriculum.
You can guess which instrument Randolyn chose to play.
“So, when they started the music program in my elementary school, I was enchanted.”
Randolyn played violin, and she was always the concertmaster.
“That means first violin. I played the solo in the Christmas concert in sixth grade. We then moved to California. That was the first time I had a chance to take private lessons. Until then, I learned in public school,” says Randolyn.
“I loved music. My goal was to be a professional Symphony musician, so that was my major. I graduated from the University of Utah. I auditioned for the Utah symphony but, due to politics at the time, it didn’t work out.”
But Randolyn had a new and expensive violin to pay for.
“That’s where the term ‘starving artist’ comes in. So many of us have to figure out how to support ourselves and hopefully do music part time.”
Randolyn found an entry-level job with a law firm to support herself and worked her way up to become office administrator while she pursued a music career.
The viola player’s son
Paul Emerson was born in Pensacola, Florida. His family moved to the Raleigh-Durham area when he was 6.
“My dad’s company was the first one of its kind out of Research Triangle Park,” says Paul.
The first time he visited Fayetteville, Paul was on a swim team that competed at the historic William Lee Field House on what was then Fort Bragg.
He says everyone in the Raleigh and Cary area had been supportive, but people in Fayetteville, especially, appreciated good music.
With blue eyes like a Carolina sky and a voice soft as tissue, he is quick to tell you that raising two boys turned his hair white.
“I was raised with music in my household. My father loved classical music. He was a very good pianist, and my mother sang.”
His father started teaching Paul to play piano when he was young and would take him to classical concerts at N.C. State University.
“Oh my, they had world-class musicians coming in. You’d hear these artists, and it was like, ‘Oh my goodness!’”
When Fayetteville got a classical music radio station, his father would tune in at their house. His dad played viola with the Pensacola Symphony and taught Paul to play.
“For me, the viola was a great fit. I know some people start on the violin and go to viola. I started with viola and have been on it the whole time.”
Like Randolyn, Paul is professionally trained and has pursued a music career. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in viola performance at Indiana University and played with the North Carolina Symphony off and on for a couple of years.
“Funding for the position dried up at the symphony, so I got into teaching school. I really wanted to get back to playing,” says Paul. “I was in violin repair and found myself coming to Fayetteville and working for the Fayetteville Symphony in an administrative position.”
At the time, the orchestra was just trying to grow so he worked at McFadyen Music repairing string instruments.
“When you do luthier work, it kind of goes and comes based on the season. When the schools are in season, it would be steady. When schools are out, there’s no work to be done. If there’s no work, you’re not getting paid,” Paul says.
In 1989, both Randolyn and Paul were living in Cary. Randolyn was asked to play with an orchestra in Rocky Mount and was told she could carpool with another musician.
“You might want to look him up. His name is Paul Emerson,” Randolyn was told.
“Oh great; it’s the jerk,” she thought.
When Paul swung by to pick up the new violinist, his heart skipped a beat.
“Oh my gosh, it’s that really good looking, really good violinist,” he remembers thinking.
“That was a long time ago,” Randolyn says with a blush.
Over time, they carpooled together going to Rocky Mount and to gigs with the Fayetteville Symphony. Their friendship grew, and he eventually evolved from jerk to husband.
They married in June 1990. Paul found steady work at a major airline in Raleigh.
“They are a very music-friendly company and supporter of the arts. That allowed me to work around my playing schedule. I’m able to keep up with playing and support Randolyn’s playing as well,” he says.
The full-time job offered everything they needed, and they started a family.
Neither of their two sons inherited their love for the strings and chose to play woodwind and brass instruments.
“Have you seen my gray hair?” asked Paul.