At the Dexter Community Orchestra’s holiday concert in December, musicians moved chairs and stands so Stan Sekerka could walk safely to his spot directly behind conductor Anthony Elliott.

Sekerka is ninety-six, and macular degeneration has stolen much of his vision. He could read the score with the help of a reading light, but couldn’t follow Elliott’s cues during the concert. So fellow violinist Ed Winfield–who Sekerka jokes is “just a kid” at age fifty-seven–occasionally pointed with his bow when Sekerka got a little ahead or behind.

Winfield says Sekerka helps him too: “He inspires me by showing me that music can be a lifelong pursuit. Music keeps the brain active, and the spirit of music keeps you going.”

His vision loss “makes me feel horrible and frustrated,” Sekerka says. But with help from his musical friends, he continued to play with the orchestra until recently, practicing often challenging music about thirty minutes a day. “Can you believe a piece that we played–a week later the Philadelphia Symphony came to town and played the same piece?” Sekerka asks.

Born in Toledo to parents from Czechoslovakia, Sekerka says “I didn’t know English until kindergarten.” His father, who played trumpet and baritone, was his first music teacher. Sekerka took up the violin when he was about eight, had a year of piano lessons, and added the trumpet to his repertoire in high school. By the time he was seventeen he’d inherited his father’s Bohemian polka band.

“We never rehearsed,” he laughs, just played at dances and weddings. He remembers with a smile those times “when the band just clicked” and also his stint playing with the 148th Infantry Band in Toledo before World War II. After getting his degree from the University of Toledo, he taught elementary school and married Doris, his wife of sixty-five years.

When their three children were born, “my playing ended,” Sekerka says. But each day after work, he’d spend fifteen minutes with each of his children–including a son who was born blind–helping them practice the piano. His life was full during those years in Ohio and later in Michigan, where he worked as a teacher, principal, and assistant superintendent. He and his family settled in Saline in 1970.

Then one day, almost fifty years after he’d packed away his instruments, a fellow parishioner at First United Methodist Church of Saline, Dick Schoenfeldt, encouraged him to pick up his violin again. Once he started, he couldn’t get enough. He played at church services for nearly two decades and joined several orchestras, including the VA National Medical Musical Group, which performed in Europe, in Hawaii, and at Washington’s Kennedy Center.

He joined the DCO about five years ago. “I wanted to play with another large group that played a different approach–a classical approach–and boy! I really got into it,” he says.

Sekerka “is absolutely devoted to being there, contributing, and doing his best,” Elliott explained last fall. A year ago, on his birthday, fellow members paid tribute to Sekerka after a Hill Auditorium performance. “That’s the standout of my life–the highlight of my life and my violin playing,” Sekerka grins. “If you start just sitting around and think about suffering, you’re going to get worse,” he says. “One thing music does is give you a goal in life. And that’s one thing that keeps me going.”

By February, Sekerka’s vision had worsened. Able to read “only two inches in front osf my nose,” he reluctantly retired from the orchestra. “I’m sure I will shed many tears,” he said of his decision to attend the DCO’s February concert as an audience member rather than a musician, but “I recognized it was time.” And Sekerka didn’t go unnoticed: Elliott asked him to stand, and the audience honored him with warm applause.

Sekerka says it would be great to “find someone who could help me improvise without using sheet music–play around the melody, like Benny Goodman did.” Meantime, he says, his wife is encouraging him to visit Saline’s nursing home to “play a few tunes every once in a while.” Music making, in some form, will remain: “I will last [as a musician] as long as I keep breathing,” he vows.

The Dexter Community Orchestra performs on May 15 at Dexter High’s auditorium. Sekerka plans to be there.