Hazel Harrison: A Brief Biography Of A Pianist

The piano, created by Bartolomeo Christofori in 1709, has impacted our society by becoming a popular instrument and a popular medium for musicians to create musical masterpieces. Also called the pianoforte, the piano is one of the most beautiful sounding instruments that can range in sound from as low as a gust of wind, to as high as the shrill sound of a bird. It has evolved over time and become an amazing instrument. The piano was accepted very well in history and it has generated many changes in the music industry. The piano was also used a lot in society and has had many applications grow from it. Without it, many classical masterpieces as well as modern songs wouldn’t have been possible.

“A Music Faculty Recital” at Prince George 's Community College was actually the very first concert I’ve been to that included Baroque style. The environment created a nostalgic yet modern and elegant mood; something that made you feel like you were in the late 1700’s yet still in modern times. The songs were mostly enjoyable and we 're all well played. This concert included an ensemble: the flute, the cello, the piano, and the harpsichord. Peggy Bair, who played the flute, was very enthusiastic. Irma Cripe, who played the cello, was quiet for the first part of the concert but gradually became more important throughout the concert. And lastly, the virtuous Gary Kirkeby, who played the piano and harpsichord, served as the backbone of all parts of the concert and made this concert very enjoyable.

began to play the piano as a child his mom played that piano as well.

“The Pianist” by Wladyslaw Spilman is a extraordianry story about a man’s survival in the holocaust in Warsaw, Poland. The book explains how Szpilman survives the holocaust in Poland by hiding, escaping, and with luck. Szpilman is important to society because he explains the following topics in his perspective for them not to happen again, religious discrimination, human rights, and punishment in crimes involving genocide. Many of the issues raised by the holocaust continue to have an impact on the world today.

Our music industry would not be what it is today without one of America’s greatest music legends, Duke Ellington. He made major breakthroughs at a time when the odds were against him. The pioneer who scouted these new regions of musical space more than any other jazz musician of the time was Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899-1974). (Tirro 1993)

During the remainder of the 1930s she taught piano lessons, continued to compose for the piano and the organ, and worked as an orchestrator for WGN radio and as an organist for silent films. She also wrote compositions and

Musical prodigy Mary Lou Williams, also known as Mary Elfrieda Scruggs, was born on May 8, 1910 in Atlanta, Georgia. She was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania along with her 10 half brothers and sisters. The start of Mary Lou’s piano career began when she was able to replay almost perfectly the song her mother played on the family’s pump organ. Her exceptional gift of perfect pitch and teaching from her mom enabled her to play piano on a professional level at the age of four years old. Mary Lou’s birth name was Mary Elfrieda Scruggs but she changed her name to Mary Lou Burly to take her step father’s last name. She later changed her last name to Williams after her first husband. At a young age Mary Lou performed small gigs around Pittsburgh and at the age of 10, she was known everywhere

did not always like the piano. When he was a small boy he liked the drums, his father

Nina Simone was one of the most unique, influential, and gifted singers of her generation. She was born on February 21, 1933 as Eunice Waymon, in Tryon, North Carolina. Her mother was a preacher and she started playing piano at an early age, around 3 or 4 at her mother’s church, as she was playing piano at a local recital she caught the eye of an older white woman willing to give her lessons. Nina went on to studying classical piano for 5 years with the woman, learning the stylings of the classical greats such as Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, and Brahms. As a child she felt so isolated, spending up to 7 hours a day practicing the piano, and growing up in the south in the segregation era, she felt as she could not fit in neither with the white or black community, even when surrounded by other children all they wanted to

Alicia Augello Cook was born on January 25th 1981 in New York. Alicia started playing the piano at age seven and began to take piano lessons. She grew up in a single family household with her mother due to her father’s absence at the age of five. Alicia first noticed her passion in music at a very young age and always dreamt of making it big and performing but never thought that it would actually happen. She had a lot of faith and took everything she did very seriously.

‘The Pianist’ is a cinematic masterpiece by the Polish director Roman Polanski. One of the key ideas that appear throughout much of the film is that of ‘hope being instrumental in our survival’. This idea is portrayed through Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish pianist, as he struggles for survival in Warsaw as everybody that he once knew and everything that he once had is lost. The idea of ‘hope being instrumental in our survival’ is worth learning about as it allows the audience to realise the importance of hope in todays society – and to understand how Polanski uses music to symbolise ‘hope’ for Szpilman in the film. Polanski effectively utilises an array of visual and oral text features such as music, dialogue, and lighting to build further

What should one do with their legacy, and how should it be put to use? In the play “The Piano Lesson”, the Charles' family faces this question, and struggles to find the answer. The family’s legacy is in the form of a piano. On the piano are carvings of their ancestors. The two main characters that are having a conflict over the piano are Berniece and Boy Willie. Boy Willie wants to sell the piano so he can add the proceeds of the sale to the proceeds of selling watermelon’s and buy some land from “Sutter”. Berniece doesn’t want to sell the piano because it holds the memories and blood that stains its wood (Gale, 2000, p255). She refuses to play the piano and keeps its history from her daughter in fear of calling up the spirits that

Clara Josephine Wieck was born on September 13, 1819 in Leipzig, Germany into a musical family. Her father, Friedrich Wieck, was “a first-rate piano teacher.” Her mother, Marianne Tromlitz, was a soprano and one of Wieck’s piano students. Clara Wieck’s parents divorced when she was five years old, leaving her and her four brothers in her father’s custody. Tromlitz married Adolf Bargiel and moved to Berlin, but she still kept in contact with Clara through letters.

     The poem Piano, by D. H. Lawrence describes his memories of childhood. Hearing a woman singing takes him to the time when his mother played piano on Sunday evenings. In the present, this woman is singing and playing the piano with great passion. However, the passionate music is not affecting him, because he can only think about his childhood rather than the beauty of the music that exists in his actual space.

At the age of three, Wolfgang showed signs of remarkable musical talent. He learned to play the harpsichord, a keyboard instrument related to the piano, at the age of four. Wolfgang began composing minuets at the age of five. When he was only six years old, he and his older sister, Anna Maria, embarked on a series of concert tours to Europe’s courts and major cities. They played for the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa