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Lost gift

Before the eyes of his colleagues and audience, the life of a top violinist with the Florida Orchestra fell into a tangle of drugs.

By JOHN FLEMING
Published October 7, 2005

	[Times photo illustration]
	Violinist Stewart Kitts spent more than 20 years with the Florida Orchestra. This year the former associate concertmaster spent more than 70 days in a Hillsborough County jail; one of his booking mug shots is shown at right.

"What happened to Stewart Kitts?"

That's a question I was asked from time to time by audience members at Florida Orchestra concerts last season, and I didn't have an answer.

Kitts was associate concertmaster, an important leader in the 80-musician symphony orchestra. He was frequently a soloist. But something was clearly wrong.

At the opening masterworks concert a year ago, he didn't play, even though the concertmaster chair was vacant and he would be expected to fill it as he had many times in the past. Another violinist played the part on what seemed like short notice that night.

Now, as the orchestra prepares to open the 2005-06 season Saturday night, Kitts, 46, is gone from the roster.

Kitts did play some concerts last season, but subscribers to the orchestra, who come to know the musicians well, saw that he was different. The once-robust violinist looked terrible: gaunt, perspiring, bedraggled. He seemed weirdly animated while playing.

There were times when the orchestra was obviously scrambling to cover for his absence, such as a Bach B-Minor Mass in which the performance of the concertmaster sitting in lacked polish. Orchestra management was protective, saying only that Kitts had an injury when I asked where he was during last year's season opener.

Soon Kitts, who'd been with the orchestra since 1982, was relegated to the back of the violin section. He appeared less and less. By February, he had been let go; the official reason was for missing rehearsals and performances.

Speculation about the violinist's problems was rife, but the rumors paled next to the facts.

Kitts refused repeated requests for an interview for this column, as did fellow orchestra musicians. But the public record tells of a rapid, tawdry descent from high-profile classical musician to crack cocaine addict.

"It's kind of a tragic story," said DeeAnn Athan, the Tampa lawyer who represents Kitts.

From Jan. 9 to April 30, the former associate concertmaster was arrested five times in Tampa, most seriously for a charge of possession of cocaine with intent to sell.

The string of arrests started in January when Kitts was charged with domestic battery. The violinist, shirtless, was arrested after having a fight in the street with his girlfriend, Angel Martin, 33, who has a long record of drug arrests. Kitts had been divorced from his wife, Saundra Buscemi, a fellow orchestra musician, with whom he has three children. Buscemi didn't return a call for an interview.

Then, on Valentine's Day, while driving a 1995 Cadillac on Busch Boulevard, Kitts was pulled over by Tampa Police on a narcotics investigation targeting him and Martin. The car contained 16.7 grams of crack cocaine, slightly more than half an ounce; 1.9 grams of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, according to the arrest report.

Also found was $1,056, which the police considered evidence of possession with intent to sell. "Based upon my training and experience, individuals involved in the sale and distribution of narcotics often carry large sums of U.S. currency," officer Debra R. Hutchens said in an affidavit supporting forfeiture of the Cadillac and money to the police department in May.

In the car with Kitts was Martin, who told police "she had a piece of rock cocaine in her bra," and "crumbs" of the drug were found in a search. "She said that she smokes cocaine and both Defendant Kitts and her have a problem with drugs," the affidavit added, though Kitts apparently contradicted Martin.

"When asked how a large amount of crack cocaine got under his leg while he was driving (Kitts) advised he didn't know," the arrest report said. "He claimed the cash he had was from the sale of his house and the diamond ring found in the back seat belongings he bought to propose to (Martin)."

On April 17, Kitts and Martin (also known as Angel Barcelo) were arrested at the Best Economy Inn on Busch Boulevard. The manager said the two were behind in paying for the room and wanted them to leave. Officer Jerry O. Barrow found glass crack pipes and other drug paraphernalia that tested positive for cocaine. "Both were advised of their rights. They have been to college and understood their rights," Barrow wrote in his report.

Kitts was also charged, at various times, with driving with a suspended license, possession of a counterfeit license plate, writing worthless checks and petty theft. For each arrest, a new mug shot was taken, viewable on the Hillsborough County arrest inquiry Web site, with Kitts looking haggard and disheveled.

After his fifth arrest in less than four months, Kitts' bail was revoked and he landed in Hillsborough County's Falkenburg Road Jail. There he remained more than 70 days, until he was released in July.

Kitts comes from an accomplished musical family. Both his mother, a violinist, and father, a bassoonist, were in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. At age 6, Kitts was featured in a young person's concert with the Indianapolis Symphony. He studied at the prestigious school of music at Indiana University and played in the Jacksonville and Savannah symphony orchestras before joining the Florida Orchestra.

I once wrote a story about Kitts when he appeared in a 1995 episode of the TV series seaQuest DSV, filmed in Orlando, to play the ghost of the legendary violinist Paganini. He fit the role of the dashing, romantic violinist well.

Having heard Kitts in many performances, I thought of him as an excellent, if undisciplined, violinist, undeniably gifted but one who perhaps cut corners on the practice hours a professional musician must put in to remain focused. Still, he was a mainstay with the orchestra as well as chamber music groups such as Phoenix and the Bayside String Quartet. He and his ex-wife had a Suzuki violin program for young children.

In many ways, a symphony orchestra is like a family, and it had to have been difficult for musicians and staff to cope with such a dysfunctional associate concertmaster, as well as painful to see a longtime colleague on the skids. The orchestra bent over backward to try to help him. At one point, music director Stefan Sanderling and others attempted an intervention to persuade Kitts to go into treatment for drug addiction. Executive director Leonard Stone said that management was willing to let him take a leave of absence. But he wouldn't listen.

Former board chairman Ray Murray said he tried to get Kitts into a treatment program and bring some order to his finances, mainly out of concern for the support of the violinist's children. Again, Kitts rebuffed the offer of help, and he ultimately burned all his bridges to the orchestra.

I contacted four musicians who had been close friends with Kitts, each having played with him for years. Three hadn't talked to the violinist since he left the orchestra; the fourth, who said he saw him recently, wouldn't talk about him for publication.

The orchestra has moved on. Jeffrey Multer is the acting concertmaster, Jeffrey Smick the acting associate concertmaster. Now there are new challenges to be overcome, such as Sanderling's injuries suffered in a fall that will require him to conduct from a seated position for a while.

Kitts' downward spiral seems particularly shocking because drugs and classical music aren't often linked, but it does happen. In 2003, a violinist in the Oregon Symphony Orchestra died of a heroin overdose. Oboist Blair Tindall's recently published tell-all book about her life as a classical musician, Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs and Classical Music, has many a druggy tale.

Michael Rabin, a violin prodigy of the 1950s, was dependent on barbiturates and died in a drug-related accident. Eugene Fodor, the first American to win the Tchaikovsky violin competition, had his career ruined by problems with cocaine before he made a clean and sober comeback, though at a less exalted level.

There is some cause for hope in Kitts' case. Athan worked out a pending agreement with the state's prosecuting attorney that her client go into a pretrial intervention program that would include drug evaluation and possibly a stint in treatment. If he is successful in meeting terms of the agreement, his cases will be dismissed.

His mother, Sonnhild Kitts, a violin teacher in Gainesville, said her son is living in Tampa and has stayed out of trouble since getting out of jail. "He's trying to mend his fences," she said. "I'm just so happy. I have been through hell with this. He's been clean as a whistle. He's committed to the violin."

Athan voiced guarded optimism. "I would hope that because his addiction was relatively shortlived, and he spent so much time in jail and was able to dry out, he has a good chance of returning to make music again," she said.

But the lawyer acknowledged that nothing is certain with crack cocaine, even for somebody with the talent to be a classical violinist.

"That's the thing about crack," she said. "Crack crosses over all social barriers. It doesn't make class distinctions. You can be the most talented, gifted person in the world, and crack can still get you."

- Times staff writer Jonathan Milton contributed to this report. John Fleming can be reached at 727 893-8716 or fleming@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 6, 2005, 09:00:06]