“Sometimes things are God-sent,” says F. Michael Combs’ daughter, Dana Fox. “Sometimes, you simply are placed where you can do the most good.” Thankfully, School founder James Dick had the foresight to place Michael right where he was meant to be. As the Joy of Music School’s first president and current board member, Michael has had a long and seemingly fated relationship with the School. In the midst of his four decades as a professor of music at UT and full-time principal musician with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, the timpani player and published author was part of a distinguished group of leaders that James Dick gathered in the early 1990s to help bring his dreams to fruition. Since those early years, Michael has been more than generous with his time and money, and vows to “keep giving his resources to support the School,” because he “woke up one morning and knew that I had been placed here for a reason.” Music has been a guiding hand since his childhood as a clarinet player in eastern Kentucky. It led him to study percussion at the University of Illinois, the University of Missouri at Columbia, and to many summers spent as part of the stage crew, and eventually teacher, at Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan. It’s a gift that he’s passed to his own daughter, a local oboe teacher, and his three young grandchildren, all of whom play violin. Now a professor emeritus at UT, Michael chairs the Joy of Music School’s board governance committee, and continues to play part time with the symphony. Whether divine intervention, or simply “right place, right time,” we’re just grateful it was music—with some help from James Dick—that led him to us.

See more articles from the April 2013 newsletter. Click here.