I was doomed to start piano lessons as a child. My great-grandmother and grandmother were both piano and organ graduates of music schools – Cincinnati Conservatory and Julliard, respectively. When people asked me what I wanted to be as a child, I said I wanted to be a...
The AGO has been important to all of us for a variety of reasons. It presents concerts and workshops, and it also gives us an opportunity to participate in them. Church work can be a lonely occupation (I have done it for 61 years). Much time must be spent alone at...
Although my first piano lessons were sometime in kindergarten, I’m a relative newcomer to the organ world — I’ve only been playing for about four years now. Between lessons and band rehearsals, music was an integral part of growing up. As a pastor’s kid, church was...
I cannot remember a time in my life without music. According to my mother, I would stand in front of the piano in my diaper, unable to see the keys, and would just listen to the different notes I could play with my fingers. My grandfather noticed my fascination with...
I was born in Burlington, North Carolina, the second child of four. My father was a minister in the United Methodist Church, and I remember at a very young age watching the organist at the Pittsboro UMC play the organ and then going home to imitate the manual...
I began studying piano at the age of 9 and was thrilled to find something that interested me since sports really wasn’t my thing. I had always been interested in the organ because of its variety of sounds and really wanted to study the organ, not the piano. Luckily,...