Quitting piano didn’t last long. Though I continued singing in our high school chorus and playing trombone in the band, neither was as appealing as the piano. I went to a couple of summer music camps during high school at the University of Maine at Orono, which perhaps helped inspire me to continue music in some form. Then as a senior, I chose to take up lessons again with the benevolent Mrs. Godfrey, as well as jazz piano lessons (which I didn’t like) from Mrs. Perkins, the wife of a local music shop owner.
I then chose to enter my freshman year of my undergraduate program as a piano major, taking lessons from a gruff, but wonderful teacher whose short black, graying, curly hair looked very similar to that of her small dog’s hair. She smoked like a chimney during our lessons and introduced me to some of the world’s most phenomenal pianists, such as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Edvard Grieg, Franz Liszt, and Frédéric Chopin, among others. Learning complex pieces from these classical composers was significant, as I would say their works inspired my future compositions.
(This is me in Ireland in February 2023 & Rachmaninoff who-knows-where-or-when)
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