For Neill Clegg, Jr., becoming a Boomer brings gifts. Gifts of experience. Gifts of wisdom. Gifts of service.
 
"From the milestones of maturity, you start to realize what really matters," says Clegg. He is 62, but you wouldn't know it from his lung capacity.
 
What matters for Clegg is what he can do with a horn. Taught by the legendary Herbert Hazleman at Grimsley High School, Clegg attended the U.S. Naval School of Music and North Texas State University. He earned Bachelor's and Master's of music degrees at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro while studying with the renowned Ray Gariglio. After doctoral studies at City University of New York, Neill spent six years as a performer and music student in the city.
 
Today, he is an Associate Professor of music at Greensboro College. This includes private instruction in saxophone and clarinet, as well as music history, music literature, counterpoint, orchestration and working with David Fox to coordinate the Jazz Studies Program.  His main instruments are saxophone, clarinet, and flute.
 
Carnegie Hall has heard Clegg’s reeds. He toured extensively across the country and around the world. Closer to home, Clegg wails with Martha and the Moodswingers on a regular basis, as well as many other groups in this area. He also performs regularly as a solo artist.
 
But Clegg’s most important gigs are the ones he plays as a volunteer.  He began playing flute and clarinet at the Moses Cone Regional Cancer Center several years ago when his wife Victoria was undergoing treatment for breast cancer.  Today, Clegg makes music for patients, families and staff at Hospice and Palliative Care of Greensboro.

The experience of playing music for someone during their last days makes Clegg philosophical. "At my age, I am humbled, rather than being overwhelmed," says Clegg who has weathered his wife’s illness, his father's and father-in-law's passing and caring for aging relatives. Not to mention his own challenges.
 
Legally blind for more than 25 years, Clegg recently used blindness as a jumping-off point in a new career: novelist. The protagonist in Clegg’s first mystery is a blind detective. There is a second book in progress, which centers on how challenges make you stronger.
 
This worldliness is taken to the college classroom, using the teachings of Aristotle and the classics to impress on students the need for disciplined preparation, which Clegg says is an essential act not only for musicians, but for everyone.  "If you do not practice, then you will not have the skill set to set your spirit free," says Clegg. "If you do practice, there is no limit to what you can accomplish.
 
"The Boomer generation, too, must take a similar disciplined approach to lead the way through the current economic crisis," notes Clegg. "We have to keep practicing and learning and be fearless in the face of uncertainty. Will we find that better way? Will we have the courage to do that?  I think so, but who knows what it will be?"

(PHOTO: courtesy Alex Maness.)