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The article presents an interview with pianist, actor, composer and playwright Hershey Felder. He portrays the character of Monsieur Chopin, by recreating events in the composers' life. According to Felder while studying for the role of Chopin, he came to know the composer in a new way. He understands the composer as strange and brilliant, but did not fully comprehend the manic-depressive side of Chopin. In preparing for the Chopin portrayal, he even consulted with Chopin Scholar Jeffrey Kallberg, who wrote about the composers' life in the book "Chopin at the Boundaries" and he worked with musicologists, fashion designers, and cinematographers, devoting his hours of research to create his stage personification of the composer.

The article focuses on musician Martin Berkofsky. As a student Berkofsky studied at the Peabody Conservatory and remembers that in two years of lessons there was no compromise with him; no excuses. After graduation from Peabody, Berkofsky taught piano and performed, but found himself hustling for concert and recital dates as he tried to build a career. In 2000 a cancer diagnosis and the ensuing radiation treatments left Berkofsky tired and unable to walk across a room. For years he routinely had jogged after concerts to relax and unwind; then he gradually started running again to restore his energy and in a little over a year increased the distance to 10 miles in a day. This routine led to the idea of a long-distance run with concerts performed along the route to raise money for cancer research. It would be one of the great adventures of his life. In his teaching and mentoring of talented students, both those in Virginia and others who come from around the world, Berkofsky tries to instill lifelong principles, which he once described in a talk at Rutgers University. Students need to painstakingly increase their knowledge and refine the results until their work is the best it can possible be. Between benefit concerts and lessons, Berkofsky continues to practice, plan recitals, and jog.

The article discusses the memorabilia of Sergei Tarnowsky and his influenced as a music teacher in piano lessons. The author relates that Sergei Tarnowsky's remarkable credentials as a teacher surpasses his modest fame as a performer. Being a remarkable performer, the piano teacher also produces gifted pupils including Alexander Uninsky, the first winner of the Chopin International Piano Competition in 1932, Anatole Kitain, Vladimir Yamplosky, and Shirley Effenbach who became his teacher-assistant and won the Inter-American Chopin contest held in Chicago in 1946.

The article presents an interview with chamber musician Jon Kimura Parker. When asked about his goals as a musician, he said he plans to make people love music and bring them to the world of music. Parker observes that concerts give audiences greater enjoyment than recordings. He believes that in order to enhance one's performance, it is important to overcome musical and technical problems.

The article presents an interview with Mykola Suk, a Russian musician who had a great penchant for the compositions of Franz Liszt. Suk, who also was on the faculty at the Kiev Conservatory, has since taught at the New England Conservatory of Music and is now artist-in-residence and artistic director of the music series at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York City. He fashioned a performing career in the years since arriving in the United States despite a problem that is common to so many outstanding Russian artists. Suk does not have a favorite composer, although his performances of Liszt have won acclaim. Suk exemplifies the Russian respect for lineage and tradition, recalling that he first studied the Liszt B Minor Sonata with Lev Vlasenko. Suk's relationship with Vlasenko continued after graduation. In his former life, he thought he had played a lot of chamber music, including the complete Beethoven violin sonatas with Oleg Krysa, who now teaches at the Eastman School of Music. However, after arriving in the U.S., he realized his background was insufficient and that there was much more to learn.

The article presents an interview with conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy in the U.S. Ashkenazy honestly admits that he learned his skills only from a few people, but mostly from self practice. Ashkenazy divided his time between solo piano playing and conducting and added that piano playing and conducting will vary from year to year.

The article presents an interview with Elyse Mach, author, concert pianist and award-winning teacher. She has traveled a variety of paths in her lifelong passion for music. Mach was recently recognized by the Board of Governors of the State of Illinois with the Distinguished Professor Award. She discusses the subject of her paper that she presented at the Liszt Society conference in Canada. Her topic was the deep and abiding spiritual kinship that existed between Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt and his father, Adam. They had such close ties that in a way, Liszt really became what his father had wanted to become. To understand Liszt's relationship with his father explains so much about the composer. Adam also wanted to be a virtuoso musician but didn't achieve it. Mach's teaching style has been influenced by her research on Liszt. According to Liszt, if a teacher knows only about his area, he can become a boring person, whereas knowing other things brings success to his own art. Liszt was very aware of the world around him. A good teacher brings so much more to lessons than comments about notes and phrasings, and Liszt was wonderful in the way he connected with each student.

The article presents the author's views regarding the great musicians' love for nature. The author states that after reading the biographies of the musicians, he learned that many enjoyed strolling in the woods. He mentions that the classical works of the great composers like Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Joseph Haydn and Béla Bartók carry musical images of mountains, forests and sunsets while others named their character pieces after trees and flowers. Beethoven has strong ties with nature, loved to spend time in the countryside and created musical images of the scenes he has seen while Bartók's passion for night music has images of nocturnal animals. The author's stroll in the woods reminds him of the great composers.

The article offers information on the classical music competition "The Real Thing," held at Roosevelt University's Chicago College of Performing Arts in Illinois. The competition, which is sponsored by pianist and actor Hershey Felder, is designed based on his experiences with the concert-going and theater-going public that aims to bring classical music to greater audiences. The contestants include gifted young pianists and singers which perform for three judges on the two days of masterclasses with a single work of his choice and receive coaching from Hershey or from a concert pianist. The competition's goal is supporting the contestants by constructive criticism in seeing their response to coaching.

The article states that Hungarian concert pianist Adam Fellegi recently introduced a new dimension to the world of piano transcriptions. He performed an arrangement of composer Ludwig Van Beethoven's glorious Symphony #9 in D Minor with a recorded version of the chorus in the finale. Fellegi solved the problem of coordinating with the recordings by discussing tempos and interpretation with the conductor, then videotaping him during a recording session. During performances he simply watches the conductor on a small monitor that sits on a music stand on the piano. The end result is an entirely unified performance. The recorded DVD disk and playback equipment accompany him to each concert. Nowadays, however, performances of masterpieces are more common, and recordings or broadcasts make original works available for people living in out-of-the-way places. Fellegi says that there are other reasons for music lovers to enjoy these transcriptions today, such as the personal touch a solo artist brings to them that a conductor and symphony orchestra cannot.

The article features Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It includes information on the documentary film of Mozart's life and works which was filmed by film maker Phil Grabsky. According to the author, music historians dismiss several misconceptions about Mozart including the fact that he was neither neurotic nor eccentric in the contemporary sense. Mozart who has written at least one masterpiece in every major genre of his time including concerto, song, opera, symphony, and piano, was professionally ambitious and balanced work with marriage and family.

The article presents information on the importance of learning a large and varied repertoire. Lessons should develop the nuances of some pieces while others are covered more casually. The breadth of repertoire and the study of music in-depth may seem to conflict, but they are not mutually exclusive. Although a broad knowledge of music is helpful, pianists need to balance what they study in-depth with pieces that get a cursory review because the repertoire is so large. Several teachers have expressed reservations about concentrating on a few works for long periods of time with students who want to win competitions because this comes at the expense of learning more repertoire. Some artists thrive on conquering new territory and will perform and record the complete nocturnes, ballades, or sonatas of a composer Artur Schnabel was a pioneer of this style. He recorded all of the Beethoven sonatas, as did the voracious Claudio Arrau. Recording companies have continued to push this approach as a way to market their products.

The article discusses the work of Tuner Jim Houston, a piano technician. Houston is one of the four staff technicians who share the responsibilities of tuning and servicing pianos at Symphony Center where the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performs. He belongs to the Piano Technicians Guild, and formerly was president of the Chicago Chapter. Guild members attend a variety of local, regional, and national meetings with other members to learn about the latest innovations and trends in the field. Houston believes that piano technicians are invisible and work magic behind the scenes.

The article reflects on brilliant performances of pianists who are blind or have limited vision. It names George Shearing, Art Tatum, Marcus Roberts, and Arthur Rubinstein as examples of many pianists with visual disabilities that have performed well. It states that performing at the piano for anyone with vision disorders is ultimately less difficult than learning new scores, which is a laborious process at best. It stresses that piano can be such a fine companion for people struggling with infirmities.

The article describes several incidents during musical performances associated with page turners. Such incident includes the experience of the author during his page turning debut for pianist György Sebök's appearance with the Fine Arts Quartet in Chicago, Illinois. Another is an upsetting incident where a page turner showed with a colorful dress to assist a pianist matching her colorful outfit. Finally, another page turner offered an extreme help for a performer in a concert where he played together with a performer on a repeated note for the finale.

The article presents comments of Bernie Sahlins, theatrical director and cofounder of Chicago's well-known Second City comedy troupe, who had read the author's interview with Byron Janis in the April 1998 issue. Sahlins happens to be a passionate amateur classical pianist and once played in a masterclass for one of the great personality pianists, Moritz Rosenthal, a pupil of Franz Liszt. He commented on Janis's distinction between the great and often flamboyant pianists whose personalities take precedence over the music and those who submerge their personalities to service the composer's work. Sahlins counsels actors to do no more or no less than to serve and inhabit the role and to find the courage to become vulnerable on-stage. Pianists, like actors, would do well to seek the same end. It is probably impossible to perfectly judge whether a pianist truly plays Bach as Johannes Sebastian Bach intended. Shalins also believes that audiences can be receptive to a performer's intentions, and they usually know if they are being manipulated or deceived. If these intentions are sincere and honestly attempt to capture the essence of a composition, audiences will almost always embrace them.