I want to share something with you, and I truly hope it doesn’t come across as bragging. That is not my intention at all. I’m simply so incredibly grateful for how I feel right now that I can’t help but share it. This morning I walked around my yard — nothing dramatic, just a couple hundred feet — then came inside and played the piano for about ten ...
Another profound influence on my musical development was my teacher, Dr. Yessin, whose training was part of a remarkable lineage of great pianists and teachers. Through generations of mentorship, Dr. Yessin’s musical heritage traces back through teachers whose own teachers ultimately studied with a student of Franz Liszt, one of the greatest pianist ...
One of the most memorable experiences of my piano studies was turning pages for my teacher, Dr. Yesin, during several of his piano recitals. Sitting just inches from the keyboard, I followed the score and turned the pages at exactly the right moment while he performed. From that seat beside the piano I could watch every movement of his hands and he ...
One of the greatest lessons of my life came from my mother. Almost three decades ago, I encouraged her to join the YMCA, and what she did afterward left a lasting impression on me. For nearly twenty years, she woke up at 5:30 every morning, five days a week, to go exercise. It didn’t matter if it was cold, dark, or inconvenient—she simply got up an ...
Over the past 10 years, I’ve lost 45 pounds through consistent, mindful changes to how I move and eat. Today, I’m wearing the same size 30 pants I wore 50 years ago. For the last couple of months, my resting heart rate has often been around 50 bpm—a sign of strong cardiovascular fitness. Two weeks ago, my bloodwork showed triglycerides ...
In the coming months, I plan to move to Portugal. I’m incredibly excited for a new chapter in my life. I’m told (and I believe) that people there — especially in the expat and local communities — will appreciate my musical heritage deeply. Portugal has a rapidly growing interest in classical piano lessons, and with my experience teaching ...
Music has shaped my life for more than 40 years as a pianist and teacher, for more than four decades of teaching and performing and sharing that joy with hundreds of students. Through my town eacher’s musical lineage, I am only a few generations removed from the legendary composer and pianist Franz Liszt, a connection that inspires me to honor and ...
Forty-eight years ago, one woman told me something that changed the entire direction of my life. She told me that I had talent. That simple sentence led me to audition for Dr. Yesen, and incredibly, he accepted me as his student. Looking back, that moment was one of the great turning points of my life. Dr. Yesen became one of the most important infl ...
One of the moments that changed my life happened in 1970, when my parents made a sacrifice I have never forgotten. They purchased a Baldwin Hamilton piano for about $900. At the time, $900 was a great deal of money for our family, and my parents were not earning very much, but they believed in me enough to make that investment. That piano became a c ...