Rodney Page: He gives you more

The Lansing area is blessed with more than its share of top-notch musical talent, but violinist-composer-conductor-DJ-educator Rodney Page earned the title of Best Classical Musician in City Pulse’s Top of the Town People Contest for the same reason he crushes everything he does: He gives you more.

Page spreads the message of music in so many ways that his versatility is an object lesson in itself. At half a dozen welcome week teacher meetings last fall, he leveraged the audiences’ narrow expectations to open up their eyes, ears and minds.

“I set up my DJ equipment, and I’m dressed stereotypically like a DJ, wearing Jordans and playing Tupac, to get them to typecast me and put me in a box,” he said.

Then he uncorks infinite possibilities.

He jumps with gusto from Mozart to Motown, Bach to hip-hop, Tchaikovsky to mariachi. He’s at home playing country fiddle, conducting a 50-piece orchestra, DJing your kid’s prom, serenading young newlyweds and comforting incarcerated people with the joy of music.

You never know where or when you’re going to run into him, but you can be sure it will change your day — and maybe your life.

Growing up in Southfield, Page sang in the church choir and stepped out occasionally as a solo vocalist. Playing the violin was his mother’s idea, not his, but he took to it almost immediately.

As a composer, violinist, DJ, motivational speaker or teacher, Page loves to delight people. He got his first taste of that feeling after a Levey Middle School concert, when, to his amazement, one of his friend’s parents approached him and asked for an autograph.

“That was when I felt I might be able to do it,” he said.

Under the guidance of Levey Middle School orchestra director Stephanie Zerby, he saw the impact a great music teacher can make.

“She made it fun and exciting,” he said. By the time Page finished high school, multiple schools, including Michigan State University, beckoned with scholarships. The choice wasn’t hard.

“MSU’s string education program is one of the best in the country,” he said.

After earning his bachelor’s degree in music education, Page taught fifth- and sixth-grade strings at public schools in East Lansing and St. Johns from 2000 to 2009.

“It was a very fulfilling experience,” he said. “I loved my co-workers, and the kids were so high energy. They were so curious about how to get better on their instruments.”

He’s still a strong supporter of music education and especially ensemble work in public schools.

“You need to do your particular job and yet coexist to produce this wonderful sound,” he said. “Tubas, violas, woodwinds — you need everybody.”

Music also opens doors to other cultures.

Page recently attended a program in El Paso, Texas, his wife’s hometown, to learn the rudiments of teaching mariachi music.

“Mariachi music wasn’t prevalent in Southfield,” he said with a laugh. “Delving into the culture, their pride in that genre, helped make me a better musician.”

Page liked teaching in public schools, but in 2009, he left his regular teaching job to be a stay-at-home dad while his wife, Kimberly, kept her position as the director of MSU’s Student Parent Resource Center.

He decided to break out on his own as a musical entrepreneur, adding DJing and public speaking to his violin gigs and private lessons.

Since then, his musical adventures have taken him all over the state and beyond, from New Orleans to the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

At professional venues such as the Michigan Music Conference, he gives a presentation called “From Bach to Hip-Hop,” offering tips on how to integrate hip-hop into strings curricula.

At the request of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commission of Mid-Michigan, he conducted a 50-piece orchestra at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day luncheon in January 2018. He DJed for the Detroit Pistons throughout the team’s 2012-‘13 season at the now-defunct Palace of Auburn Hills and regularly DJs at Stober’s Bar in Lansing. In the summer, he fiddles with the Jack Clarkson Band, a five-piece country ensemble.

Classical is still his favorite kind of music (and Tchaikovsky is his favorite composer), but he urges audiences at his various presentations to keep their minds open and not to judge.

He backs it up with music, weaving a Baroque partita with Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground,” Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” a Patsy Cline song and — now that he’s in the know — a morsel of mariachi music, along with anything else that’s dancing in his head.

The sea of amazed faces reminds him that he’s in the right line of work.

“Music is something everyone likes,” he said. “You might like different genres, but everyone in the world is listening to music.”