On Aug. 8, 1976 Michael Leistner attended his first concert which was by Jethro Tull. Being only 15, his parents insisted that his two older sisters go along. Leistner brought his friend Mike Herzog, who was also a fan.

“My eyes were glued to the stage,” Leistner said. “It was so incredibly exciting because it was my first concert and I was absolutely fanatical about this band.”

Leistner was captivated by the amazing show put on by the band as well as the music.

“The most memorable thing to me was watching these people on stage and they were extremely animated and theatrical, the way that they moved about the stage, for me it was incredible,” Leistner said.

The concert sparked a deeper love for music and he soon began to widen his music taste. He started buying rock magazines and going to record shops and talking with people there to get new music recommendations.

“It did get me more interested in other things,” Leistner said. “What I did when I was young, information I had to get from buying magazines. I would buy rock magazines and I would read articles about certain bands and who they were influenced by and then I would go investigate that.”

It is clear to most people familiar with Leistner just how passionate he is about music.

“He talks about it a lot,” Olivia Williams, one of Leistner’s printmaking students, said. “He kinda talks about different points in his life and references bands he was listening to at that point.”

Leistner continues involving himself with music by asking his students what kinds of music they listen to.

“He asks more about the jam stuff because he’s not really familiar with it,” Ben Walters, one of Leistner’s students, said.

At the age of 15, around the time of his first concert, Leistner started to really get serious about music.

“A lot of people, they get up in the morning and they turn on the tv and the tv’s on all day until they go to bed. For me, it was music. I would get up in the morning and start playing music and it would just be playing all day.”

While he does not have as much time for music as he used to, his love for music shows no sign of fading away.