I had begun asking for piano lessons when I was around three. "You may start once you are in kindergarten," my parents had said. Apparently, after the first day of kindergarten, I asked, "when do I start?"
The natural choice was to have me begin with Miss Nase. She was, at that time, my mother's teacher. I was obsessed from an early age with watching my mother practice.
Lessons when I was young were my favorite thing of the week. Reading came quickly and I would play the piano every time I walked past the instrument (which at that time was a Kimball Artist's Console).
There are so many things which I owe Ailene. But of primary importance, or what I have carried with me into my professional career, are: stage presence, form, analysis, theory, the need for imagination, open-score reading, and an absolute passion and love for music, the making of it, and the need to put that first.
I studied with this woman for ten years. I think she mostly enjoyed me, except when I was being stubborn and opinionated. (This has been known to happen on occasion). I remember one lesson where I was assigned multiple movements of a Clementi sonata. At that point in my life, I didn't want to play any slow movements. So I ripped the slow movement out of the book and hid it in my piano bench at home, and went back the next week to the lesson, outer (quicker) movements prepared and no slow movement. When she asked me about it, I told her that my book didn't have one. (I remember a stiffled smile - I wasn't fooling anyone).
She instilled in me the importance of knowing theory very well from the beginning. We worked on it from day one, along with ear training. One of the questions that I've never been able to answer is that, at one point after moving back to PA from Oberlin, I inherited five of her old students. ALL of them had either perfect pitch or very highly developed relative pitch. How she developed this continues to be a mystery, but mathetmatically, 80% of a small group is a very high number of musicians to have that level of pitch memory. She herself was an accomplished choral conductor, so the importance of many facets of the "total musician" - strong rhythm, strong reading skills, theory, really good ears, score reading, improvisation - were strengths in her teaching. These are strengths I have to this day, and I can't possibly begin to show how much gratitude I have for her teaching in this way.
I also remember her tirelessly rehearsing us before recitals, about how to walk to the piano, how to bow, how to sit, how to thank the audience. She insisted on Sunday "formal" attire for her recitals, and they were beautiful. After the recital, we were all given a carnation for congratulations, and then had a reception.
Ailene taught (at one point, but not all at the same time) both of my parents and three of my siblings. She was also completely identifiable and unique - white Mercedes, distinctive perfume, always dressed so beautifully for lessons, beautiful manicured nails (she didn't play a lot in the days when I was studying with her). I can still remember her dog and also her lovely home (decorated like a French parlor). Her "studio" was a finished garage which held a Baldwin piano and a harpsichord, which her father had built for her. She was the one that introduced me to harpsichord playing, and that is another bug which really stuck.
Her support for the arts and of people's participation in music is another thread which is strong through my core, even today.
When I received word that she passed away, when I was in Germany, it put me into a more contemplative but also state of incredible gratitude and grace. This woman had given me, and so many other musicians, so much to be thankful for. My concerts in Germany in my mind were offered in dedication for *her* - her life, her passion for music, her looking after me (musically) for a decade. In re-reading her obituary, my affinity for vocal music wasn't something that sprung up at Oberlin. It is, essentially, "mother's milk," for she understand vocal music, line, and counterpoint in genuine way.
She even passed at eighty-eight years, which shows her true dedication to the piano.
PHOTO: Miss Nase, how I remember her ...
)For more information, please visit http://www.williamsbergeykoffel.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=837:-nase-ailene-mary&catid=34:obituaries&Itemid=65)
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