Evergreen Park Musician Heads to Bosnia Herzegovina

Maybe you’ve heard it.

A gentle musical sound, wafting through the summer air sometime after midnight near Chi Tung Restaurant and you’ve  wondered, “Where is that music coming from?“

No, you weren’t imagining it.  It came from the bowels of Bethel Bible Church on 96th and Spaulding and was the French horn styling’s of Dan Worsham.

Worsham, born in St. Louis Park MN and who grew up in Kenosha WI, is a performance music major graduate from the University of Minnesota,  and currently lives with his parents Steve and Val Worsham in Evergreen Park.  His dad pastors the church from which those haunting melodies emanate.  His mom is the school crossing guard at Homan and 95th Street during the school year.

In September, Dan will be departing for Bosnia Herzegovina to participate in the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra, playing second chair French horn for the next ten months as part of an musical exchange program.  For Dan, this past year has been spent rising early in the morning to work a part time construction job, grabbing a quick bite to eat at around 2pm and then jumping a bus and train to get downtown for his second job; making fund raising calls for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  Arriving home around 10pm, he would then eat dinner, catch up on a little correspondence and maybe a sitcom, and then it was time to practice, practice, practice.  In addition, this summer he squeezed in a trip to Europe for three weeks to play with and instruct a Wisconsin state  high school all star band that was short on French horns,  played in a two week festival in Brainard MN, and was honored at a concert in Milwaukee where an arrangement for twelve horns that Dan wrote was being performed and where he was featured

Excited to pursue his dream of playing in a big time orchestra, Worsham has reason to be somewhat anxious; he’ll be entering a country where a different language is spoken, foods are different, cultural norms are not the same and he’s entering an already established musical group.  But his early summer European travel and many musical enterprises as well as strict adherence to his late night practice habits will serve him well as he sets sail on this new adventure.

But what will we do for late night entertainment on 96th and Spaulding?  Listen to the snowy winds blow, I’m afraid.

Not quite the same.