spiritinaction.org
(Janet Fowler drove Lauri Fried Lee, Shehla Khan, Bill Shoaf and me to Point Richmond to hear him play, and we saw Robin Mackey, another CCSF friend and colleague about to retire.)
Besides being an extraordinary pianist, he has a great sense of humor, and he knows that we are OLD friends, so he even excused us in advance for any visits to the restroom we might have to make between numbers.
He said that he had been alone at the piano for so long that he took notes on how to behave in public: Don't hum. Don't moan. Don't drool....
He played pieces by Scarlatti, Haydn, Chopin, Lamb, Brahms, and Franck, and he didn't drool at all!.
He told us that Scarlatti had written 550 piano pieces but not to worry because he was going to play only three of them.
After he played three "Rags," he quipped "This may be the first time anyone's gone from playing rags to Brahams at a recital, but when you're retired, you can do whatever you want to do."
He thanked his wife Marsha for being the page turner, and someone (Janet Fowler) added "and more!"
Their charming (and handsome) son Carl is here with Marsha and Dennis.
Then I had Dennis fake-play so I could take a picture without being disruptive!
He gives tidbits of information, too, and it's all new to me and helps me be a better listener since my usual choice of music is show tunes. (I wonder how Joseph Lamb and other ragtime composers would regard the musical Ragtime if they were still around.)
I have to say, too, that when he played Chopin's Etude in E major, I wondered whether I'd heard that on an old Elaine May-Mike Nichols album."
Someday I hope we get to hear Dennis play Ben Harney's "You've Been a Good Old Wagon, but You Done Broke."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEBs_mpTH6w
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