The title, “Tchai-toven-off,” I am sure is very confusing without explanation. For many years of my life, I was a musician. I was a percussionist who was a part of, and loved, marching band. The music our director was drawn to, more often than not, was classical. With our shows he twisted this classical music and gave it a whole new life- and with it we told creepy and unique stories. Something I was already so drawn to from my affinity for young adult fiction novels. Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart. These were the composers I became fond of.

This character blends pieces of my time as a percussionist. The violin represents an instrument I have always loved the sound of but never learned to play and a symbol for Tchaikovsky’s, “Swan Lake,” which was one of the most impactful compositions in my marching band shows. The piano represents a time when I took piano lessons and as a symbol for Beethoven’s, “Fur Elise,” among many other compositions which impacted my love for music. The drum set in this sculpture represented what I loved to play most as a percussionist- the drums. In marching band, it was tenors (a set of 5 drums) and in pep band it was the drum set.

The title of this piece could have included so many musicians, but I think we can all agree that the name would have gotten a bit hard to remember. So, “Tchai-toven-off,” became the final title, an amalgamation of these three musicians’ last names: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Ludwig van Beethoven and myself (Leah Diekhoff).