Stephen Brumby had this electric ukulele and an amplifier he would carry around with him everywhere, friend Sky Stahlmann says.
With it, the 14-year-old boy would make “every song a ukulele song.”
He was a talented musician who learned songs by ear, and Stahlmann says he was one of the most talented piano players she had ever performed with.
So, his sudden death in an accidental shooting on July 3 stunned her.
“I instantly burst into tears,” says Stahlmann of the call she got from her mother telling her Stephen had died. “He was so alive, the idea of him not being around anymore, that personality and that presence being gone, was almost unfathomable. He was the essence of life.”
Stephen Brumby, 14, of Sarasota playing the ukulele. (PHOTO COURTESY OF SKY STAHLMANN)
Stahlmann is planning to honor his memory in a song she will debut at a free concert she is hosting with her band Alone Together at 6 p.m. Sunday, at Hunsader Farms, 5500 County Road 675 in Manatee County. The performance is limited to the first 300 guests.
“When I went about actually writing this song and I got it out … and when I could think about Stephen without feeling sad, and really remember who he was, the words just came because there are so many words to describe him,” Stahlmann said. “It was a healing experience.”
She titled it “Meteor” for the word his parents used to describe him because his outlook on life “was so bright that time won’t be able to fade his memory in our hearts,” Stahlmann says.
“Don’t you miss us one bit, you are in a place where your joy truly fits, run along and shoot through the sky, and we won’t let you fade as time goes by.”
She will perform the song with her Alone Together band mate, Matthew Vero, at a tribute concert featuring some of Stephen’s favorite songs, and performances by friends and family.
While “Meteor” doesn’t include a ukulele, Stephen’s favorite instrument, Stahlmann says, from the heavens, she is certain he will add his unique strum to it.
“When he died there was a darkness that kind of settled over everyone,” she says. “It was like switching a light off because he was such a bright source. That’s something I kind of hit on.”
