Piano Inspires Podcast: 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award Winners

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Barbara Fast

Barbara Fast: Then I also couldn’t decide about, should I do social work? That was a big thing at the time at Bethel College where I went. In my sophomore year, I did one semester working in a halfway house and I thought, “Nope, I miss practicing too much.” And so that was just very informative. You know, try out the things and, you know, I really feel when I’m working with students, you are going to have failures in life. You’re going to try out things, but they are what is going to inform you in your life. Your failures help you become who you are. You’ve got to have some failures to become who you are. You just have to. 

Pamela Pike: Yes, absolutely. I mean, this is such an important point. You know, and they inform, they help us, as you mentioned, you know, discover we think we’re interested in something, but when we see what that really involves, we realize, no, something else means more to us. Where do we want to spend our valuable time? 

BF: Yes. Absolutely. 

Susie Garcia

Susanna Garcia: But what I want to inspire others to do is to understand that there’s boxes like this in every archive, in every library, all over the world waiting to be discovered. ‘m going to promise you that there are going to be dozens, if not hundreds, of African American composers whose music has never been published. And this is why history is important, and this is why honesty about history is important, you know. I do think it’s important to know why the music wasn’t published. I’m just not able to say for sure why that was. But I think that’s part of the research process. And I hope if you’re a young pianist or a young scholar hearing this podcast and looking for a topic for your doctoral work you know, just going into these libraries and cataloging what’s in there for the world to see would be changing the world and being truthful and honest about music history.

William Chapman Nyaho

Music is such a big healer. We’re humans and it is our arts and culture that defines us and not, you know, how much we can make in the stock market and so on and so forth. If we can find music that we can connect to or as performers or as teachers [and] explain to others what resonates with me and what I’m giving to you as a gift, you know, [that] can help. I mean, music is a way to bring relief to people. You just don’t know who you’re going to touch or heal in a recital just because the person’s had a terrible day and they bought this ticket to come and hear you play. And, “Oh my gosh, they played something which is kind of different. Oh, that’s something I recognize.”

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