98040 Mercer Island Living: Home Works

98040M E R C E R I S L A N D L I V I N G

F R O M K E YB OA R D S TO K E YPA D SP i a n o s a n d I s l a n d l i f e a r e s t i l l i n h a r m o n y

H O M E W O R K S

MARCH 2011

98040 | MARCH 2011 | HOMEWORKS

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98040 | MARCH 2011 | HOMEWORKS PAGE 3

On our cover: The Dorsey Piano, photographed by Chad Coleman, sits in the living room of Bill and Maggie Dorsey’s home on Faben Point. It is a mid-century, German-made Ludwig baby grand. The couple designed their home to accommo-date a grand piano. Maggie Dorsey used to teach piano on the Island. She is now retired. She and her granddaughter both continue to play the instrument. “It has brought us great joy,” she said.

P ianos are a work of art, a source of joy and an instrument of learning. Pianos are everywhere on Mercer Island, from a wine store in the Town Center to the battered uprights on wheels at every school, and in every place of worship. Despite the many

distractions that fill everyday life, they have a firm foothold in our cul-ture. We take a bit of time to celebrate their role in this issue of 98040.

98040 is a publication of the Mercer Island Reporter 7845 S.E. 30th Street • Mercer Island, WA 98040

Publisher Janet Taylor Editor Mary L. Grady Advertising Sales Theres’a Baumann Production Melanie Morgan Photography Chad Coleman

www.mi-reporter.com

4 Liner notes 5 Keepers of the keys 7 Keys to learning 8 Ebony, ivory and gold 10 Sweet sound of success

INSIDE

H O M E W O R K S

98040M E R C E R I S L A N D L I V I N G


For many of us, there was a piano in the living room instead of a televi-sion. For some, there still is.

Long after radio, television and the In-ternet arrived, pianos are still with us. For many, they were a first step in a life filled with music. For others they provided a foundation for other skills.

Even if the pia-no has faded into the background, pushed aside by other types of e nte r t a i n me nt or distraction, the instrument remains an ubiq-uitous fixture in public gathering places: schools, restaurants, churches and synagogues, and yes, even the shopping mall.

The instrument has adapted along the way with electronic models that include computers, the capability to record and the ability to Skype.

The piano has also survived and flourished not only as an integral part of the home, but as a source of learning.

For parents here on Mercer Island, piano lessons continue to be an important part of

bringing up children, expanding their horizons through tempos and phras-ing. Many find it a way to bring music, sharpened learning skills and a bit of discipline into the home.

In this issue we take a look at how the teach-ing of piano continues on Mercer Island. We visit with a new type of music merchant who is changing the way that the instru-ments are being bought and sold. Finally, we check in with a trio of Islander natives

who have flour-ished in the world of high tech and high finance with a bit of help, we’d postulate, brought by key-board skills and Island ties.

Finally, we touch on the healing gift of

music. Those who work with older adults, or even unruly children, know the power of sound to soothe and distract.

We all respond to melody and rhythm. We rise at the sound of the organ at church. We hum to a familiar tune or feel better with a soundtrack on a morning run or a trip to the grocery.

We owe much of it to those 88 keys used so well by so many — from Chopin to Alicia Keys.

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This grand piano is available for anyone to play inside the Olde Wine Store at 7858 S.E. 28th Street, across from QFC on Mercer Island.

“Without a piano I don’t know how to stand, don’t know what to do with my hands.” – Norah Jones

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By ReBecca MaR & MaRy L. GRady98040 Magazine

For a half dozen Mercer Island women, teaching piano on Mercer Island is not only a serious profession, it is business and a passion.

All have taught generations of Islander youth from the enthusiastic to the reluctant. Some have had students go on to play professionally, teach their

own children or learn to appreciate music more. Even after many years of teaching, they all love their profession. The Reporter spoke to a half-dozen Islanders about their experiences as a piano

teacher — and a bit about the nuts and bolts of their profession. Most have as many students as they want, from 50 or so to just six. The ages of their students range widely. At least one teacher has a student as young

as 3. Kristen Salerno has a student who is 80. As a group, they charge an average of $1 a minute. Sessions range from 30 to 45 minutes to an hour long. Most have students on a waiting list.

In all, they have taught hundreds. Islander Lois Jacobson estimates she has worked with perhaps 1,500 students. She began teaching in 1950, when she was in her 20s.

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Lois Jacobson, 86, plays one of her two pianos at home on Mercer Island.Continued next page

Connie Wible has taught for 35 years. Kristen Salerno began teaching when she was just 14. Jeannie Ellis began in France when her husband was there for a Ful-bright Scholarship in 1988.

Originally from Japan, Reiko Ito, who came to Mercer Island from New York, has taught here since she arrived 20 years ago. Lydia Chang has taught for 25 years — 20 years at her home studio on the Island.

Q: What is the one thing people may not know about being a piano teacher?

“The perception used to be that teach-ing was the job you did when you stayed home,” said Wible, who is a member of the board of the Lake Washington chapter of the Music Teachers Association. “Everybody is a very educated teacher and very knowledgeable. I’m not sure many understand how much there is to getting a degree in music. It takes a lot of extra to become a good teacher.”

“I don’t think most realize how much time and energy is spent looking for books and music,” said Salerno. “I love doing it, but I don’t think the students or the par-ents realize how much extra time is in-volved besides the 30, 45 or hour lessons.”

“It can be wonderfully fun,” said Ellis. “You have to love people; if you love peo-ple, it’s a fabulous job, it’s a wonderful joy. The teachers do a lot; there’s a lot of pro-fessional activities, a lot of workshops. It [takes] lifelong learning. We’re constantly reading, studying.”

Q: What works best to help students learn to play, and what is the greatest barrier?

“The greatest barrier to learning to play is procrastination,” said Wible. “I want them to want to play. Every time they walk by the piano, I want them to be drawn to it.”

For Salerno, the is-sue is patience. “We all want to have the end result immediately,” she said. “It does re-

quire self-discipline to achieve results.” “Sometimes the greatest barrier is that

everyone is doing so many activities that practice might get short thrift,” observed Ellis. “But I have seen all ages, all abilities, and they all can learn.”

The biggest barrier is simply not prac-ticing enough, Jacobson agreed. “It’s not a skill you can develop once a week. It’s a daily skill. And it depends so much on the family’s support and routine. If it’s not done on a routine basis, it’s practically im-possible. I would say that boils down to the essentials. If you really play, you have

to be devoted.” Q: What is the most important thing that

you hope to instill in your students? “I try to bring them to the point where

they can really analyze and understand what to do on their own without their teacher,” said Jacobson. “I want them to be able to study on their own — and make it a life-time enjoyment.”

Ito, who teaches through the Academy of Music Northwest in Bellevue, said it is more holistic.

“We want to make children very creative. We encourage feeling, experience and experi-ment, with participa-tion, and with fun. Always, I want them to feel the joy of doing something.”

There are so many life skills [that can be achieved] under the guise of music: setting goals, completing tasks and appreciating beauty, said Ellis. “Watching students real-

ize that they can do things that they never thought they could do is just something wonderful.”

Q: What are some of your favorite students and memories?

“I used to have big recitals every year at the Congregational Church,” Jacobson remembered. “One recital and concert by the Reinertson girls, a set of twins who are now seniors in college, was a huge success. It was their last big program. They each had a piano and performed both duets and solos. It was a knockout, 150 people attended.”

Wible has one former student who is getting a degree in psychology and com-bining it with a music degree to be inte-grating music in the arts into her practice. She has had students who have gone into the theater. One student traded piano les-sons for building her Web site: merceris-landmusic.com.

“It’s really about musical community,” Wible said. “I want every child to feel they are a part of something that’s bigger than them.”

“They’re all so unique,” Ellis said. “Each one has a distinct per-sonality, each one has [a set] of things that they can’t do and then they overcome those. I love taking a student who says, ‘I can’t read music, I’ll never learn to read music,’ and then six months later when they sight read something for the first time for me, I remind them that once upon a time they thought they couldn’t and now they are.”

“We are spoiled here on Mercer Island, with wonderful music teachers,” she added. “We urge all parents to take their children

to avail themselves of any opportunity to enjoy music.”

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From previous page

Local piano teachers

Piano teacher Lois Jacobson has taught more than 1,000 students.


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Let’s face it: Most of us consider a piano teacher to be of a certain type.

A kindly, proper, but strict lady. Less of-ten a man. If so, he is a professorial-type perhaps with a rumpled tweed coat.

Not an elementary school teacher with five young children and a baby blue Elton John-like piano.

But then there is Rob Darling, a first grade teacher at West Mercer Elementary School.

Darling, 36, is in his third year of teaching el-ementary school, the last two at West Mercer Elementary School.

The teacher is a Port Angeles native who hated his piano lessons as a child. His mother stood over him, he said, prodding him along. The oldest of six children, he muddled through until the seventh grade, when he joined the middle school choir, “made up of 40 girls and me,” he said re-cently in his West Mercer classroom.

The girls were impressed, he remem-bered, and he became a minor celebrity. “You can play,” they would say in amaze-ment.

That made the difference, he said.

Obviously, his male classmates saw the success, he noted. Choir suddenly became popular with both sexes the following year.

Darling and his wife, Erin, who live in Maple Valley, have five children, two each from previous marriages and a baby boy, Simon, born late last December. Darling

teaches all four older children in between teaching private les-sons both before school on the Island and after school at his home on a baby-blue piano upright of an undetermined quality that he painted himself. In all, there is a

total of 25 students. The baby sleeps through the lessons, he

said.Mercer Island, he said, is a place where

parents are keen to expose their children to all kinds of experiences, especially those that will add to learning.

Parents here start lessons for their kids when they are very young. Darling has at least one student in kindergarten.

Music plays an important role in learn-ing, he said. In some ways, it is all about math. The notes represent fractions; there is timing, counting and repetition. And a bit of anthropology as well. No doubt our

early ancestors communicated with music and singing, he added.

There are other advantages to learning a musical instrument, he said. Playing in front of others gives young students con-fidence and praise from people other than their parents.

He is amazed that parents who know how to play themselves, do not teach their own children, he said.

He does think that parents sometimes let their children quit too easily when the going gets tough.

The payoff for him has been huge.It was a music scholarship that got him

into college at BYU at the Rexburg, Idaho, campus. But it wasn’t for music, he said. He wanted to play baseball.

After a year in Rexburg, he went to Bra-zil for a couple of years, then went back to school in 2003. He later earned a Master in Education in 2009 from the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania.

His advice for learning to play? It is the commitment to practicing, he

said, not the lessons.

West Mercer Elementary teacher wants kids to learn more than piano

West Mercer Elementary School teacher and piano teacher, Rob Darling works with his daughter, Tyler-Ann Darling, at home on the piano he refinished and painted.

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Located on a block just waiting to be redeveloped on the south side of N.E. 8th Street in down-town Bellevue is a strip mall,

home to fairly low-key business such as a tailor, a tiny spa and a pizza place.

Yet at one end is a business whose mod-est facade belies the multimillion dollar inventory within.

In the former location of Washburn Pi-anos, a business called Classic Pianos set up shop just three years ago. Inside is a selection of pianos that will blow the un-initiated away.

Business is very good at Classic Pianos in Bellevue. In the vernacular of a retailer,

the market for pianos is “active,” said Fred Riley, the store’s co-manager.

The business sells 50 pianos or more each month with at least 200 to 300 more in inventory, all of it within the building. Most are very high-end.

Just inside the front door is a room full of digital pianos, priced from $1,500 to $15,000. The electronic pianos are an im-portant part of the business, making up about 40 percent of total sales and 20 per-cent or more of revenue, Riley said. Many are hybrid pianos that allow the musician to switch back and forth.

Music stores have come to accept that digital pianos have a place, too, Riley noted. Indeed, the main entrance to the store puts you into the digital piano sec-

tion that includes all kinds of upright and grand pianos that do everything from helping you record a CD to a model that allows you to Skype and share a screen that shows the music being played.

Yet acoustic pianos are the mainstay of the business. Grand pianos, used, refur-bished or new, start in price from under $10,000 up to $100,000 and well beyond.

Pianos may have gained in status in the eyes of popular music stars such as Alicia Keys and Josh Groban, and Elton John, Riley said.

There is no dismissing the influence of electronics on the sale of pianos over the past several years.

“Everyone was distracted by electron-ics,” said John Slavick, who also works at the store. “Everyone was watching a screen.”

Now, they say that parents wanting kids to excel in school have turned back to the piano as a way to encourage music and learning. Both point to the research that has found that youth who play a musi-cal instrument improve their math and learning skills and do better in school.

People here, Riley said, are focused on education. They buy as an investment in their kids. He points to a copy of the “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” on his

Classic Pianos storms into the music market offering pianos for players and investors

Ebony, ivory &

GOLDFred Riley plays a nine-foot Bösendorfer grand piano trimmed with gold.

Continued next page

desk. The pair gives two examples. A Wood-

inville woman came in and bought an $80,000 Bösendorfer as a birthday gift for her 10-year-old daughter. The daughter is a prodigy, Riley explained. A family of 10 came from Gig Harbor to buy an $8,000 baby grand for their children.

The company has done exceptionally well despite the economic downturn, when it seems unlikely that many families

have a couple extra thou-sand dollars to plunk down on a piano.

The success of the business perhaps has less to do with an implied de-mand for pia-nos to a good business plan and the skills and chutzpah of the handful of people who run the store.

The people at Classic Pia-nos also credit their success to marketing and finding buyers wher-

ever they may be, whether it is Las Vegas or Gig Harbor. Using social media and having a huge inventory of everything means they offer all kinds of choices. The company has tuners, technicians and oth-ers as contractors who are there to work as needed on an instrument, from tuning a grand electric hybrid to restoring a fine vintage trade-in to the huge job of moving or shipping a 1,000 lb. Steinway grand.

Many buyers trade in pianos. There is a 1920 Steinway grand piano trade-in with ivory keys waiting for refurbishment. One buyer traded in a Bösendorfer piano for

$10,000 credit. Awaiting shipping nearby is a 9-foot-6-inch Bösendorfer purchased for $93,000 by a man in Las Vegas.

Downstairs is more inventory made up of three or four dozen more grand pianos and stacks of uprights in boxes. And back to one side, roped off from the rest of the impressive instruments, is yet another Bösendorfer. It is a replica of the one custom-made for the emperor of Japan that was destroyed by fire in the palace

in 1879. It was shipped from Japan after it was on tour there. It is priced at $1.5 million.

Both Riley and Slavick came to the busi-ness as piano tuners. Slavick holds master technician status with Steinway & Sons. Riley’s career in pianos began with the guitar. As a teenager, while watching his guitar teacher tune the family piano, Fred became intrigued with learning the art of tuning pianos. He tuned pianos through

college and, in 1990, earned a piano tech-nician-business degree from Shenandoah Conservatory in Virginia.

Both Slavick and Riley worked else-where before being hired by the Portland, Ore.-based Classic Pianos to open in Bel-levue. They note that hundreds of music stores have gone out of business in the last couple of years. But they have found the market here better than they had hoped.

They want to be a part of the commu-nity. With the help of Yamaha Pianos, the business lends new pianos to Seattle Pa-cific, the UW and Bellevue College. They move them in and set them up. After a year or so, the company resells the pianos at the schools.

“Our goal is to help people families have music in their lives. And we mean it — we grew up with it, we love it,” Riley said.

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Buying a pianoPianos don’t all sound the same. Variations in size, age, make and style must be taken into consideration when choosing a piano.• Is it an upright, baby grand or grand?• Acoustic or digital? • Is it used or brand new?• What room will it occupy?For buying tips, readers can browse through the Piano Buyer’s guide online in its entirety at www.pianobuyer.com.

98040 | MARCH 2011 | HOMEWORKS PAGE 9From previous page

Classic Pianos in Bellevue stocks all kinds of pianos, including several German-made Bösendorfer instruments. The store is at 10635 N.E. 8th St. in Bellevue. To learn more, go to http://classicpianosseattle.com.


It was a business deal, not Facebook, that brought three Islanders from the Mercer Island High School class of 1985 back together. A deal worth millions.

The story begins with the teaming of Scott Weller and Rick Hennessy to run a technology startup company named Cequint in Seattle. Cequint produces software that allows cell phone users to have caller ID.

Now, caller ID is accessible mostly on landline phones, but it has yet to be fully implemented on cellular phones. Weller had previously worked with Blackberry and Hennessey on ring tones.

In 2008, the tiny company was mak-ing progress but facing stiff competition. They needed more funding to go forward. They were referred to the global commu-nications company, Transaction Network

Services, just outside Washington, D.C. Through a somewhat casual conversa-

tion, Weller and Hennessey were sur-prised to learn that the head of business development at TNS is none other than their old high school classmate, Chris Penny.

The three grew up on Mercer Island. Chris Penny was the high school baseball team captain, homecoming king, and ac-cording to his friends, a man about town. Weller was a captain of the 1985 state championship Islander basketball team, along with Quin Snyder. Hennessey was an all-state wrestler.

Any qualms they had about the deal were instantly erased.

“It made it very easy,” they said, know-ing their old friend was on the other end. “Comfort and confidence are key when you are in the midst of a long and ardu-ous due diligence process,” said Weller.

“Those old relationships, those high

school connections, are still meaningful. There is something to be said for those,” Penny agreed.

TNS agreed to acquire Seattle-based Cequint for up to $112 million. The deal includes an initial payment of about $50 million, consist-ing of about $46.7 million in cash and about $3.3 million in stock issued to certain Ce-quint executives. There’s an additional $62.5 million in cash payout if Cequint meets future profit targets extending to May 31, 2014. The deal was listed as the 18th largest in Se-attle that closed in 2010 by the Puget Sound Business Journal.

With the infusion of cash, Cequint ap-pears to be at the head of the pack on supplying and expanding ID capabilities. the second-generation service includes the delivery of a caller’s name and other

features, TNS said.Over the last couple of months, the tiny

company has hired two dozen or more software engineers, and moved into ex-panded digs in their building near the

ferry terminal on the Seattle waterfront. They are relish-ing their success and working hard to reach their goals.

It all fits into Hennessey’s mantra of, “building some-thing special with a bunch of good people.”

On a recent dark winter af-ternoon, the three shared a conversation with Weller and Hennessey in Mercer Island

and Penny on the speaker phone from Reston, Va. The former classmates slipped effortlessly back and forth in time, telling stories, remembering friends. With two

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Cequint CEO Rick Hennessey and Scott Weller, president, in their newly expanded offices on Western Avenue in Seattle. They are classmates from the MIHS class of 1985.

Islanders reconnect over phone deal

sweet sound ofsuccess

Chris Penny

Continued next page

MIHS yearbooks in hand for reference, there was much teasing about hair and who did what. History was revised on the spot.

The three are sure that their connection is even better because they grew up on Mercer Island.

“There was something about living here,” said Hennessey, whose fam-ily moved to Alaska for a year during his high school years. “The environment is different. You are told, ‘If you can do it, do it the best you can.’”

Despite the emphasis on achievement and academics, Weller said, there was an importance in loyalty and friendship here.

They talked a bit of the girls they ad-mired and wished they had known better. One such person was Weller’s neighbor and childhood friend, Islander Mindy Blakeslee. She and Weller used to walk to school together in the second grade. She remembers each man in detail, ticking off their accomplishments at school, the sense of knowing each other so well.

Between the three men there are eight

children; four boys and four girls. Hav-ing children of their own has made them appreciate the place where they grew up even more. Penny’s oldest children go to a Jesuit High School in the Washington, D.C. area. “It is a good place, but it doesn’t have the same sense of community as the Island,” he said.

They want the best for their children, just like what they had growing up here.

“We heard about bad behavior,” said Hennessey. “But we did not know any.”

The others laughed.


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Scott Weller, center, offers encouragement to his teammates during the 4A boys state basketball championship game in 1985. The Islanders won.

By BEtsY ZuBERFor 98040 Magazine

I know what I felt the very first time when I grabbed the mic while playing “Rock Band” with a bunch of tweens. I was blissfully transported to my own teen years, singing my favorite Go-Go’s song, pretending to be Belinda Carlise. It was great right up to the point when the 12-year-old playing the guitar asked, “Who are the Go-Go’s?”

Music can strongly evoke memories and feel-ings, both good and bad. For many, music can cre-ate meaning during times that are turbulent or in-credibly happy. Because of how powerful music can be, it is great for therapy.

One successful use is with people who have a diagnosis of dementia. Even when these folks are unable to remember how to tie their shoes, they can sing familiar songs verse by verse. This form of communication can help the person feel that they are part of a community and provides active social-

ization. Even if they do not remember that they have spent time singing or playing instruments or dancing to the music, they have participated in meaningful activity. Meaning and con-nectedness with others is often hard for

folks with memory loss.Research has also

shown that people with Alzheimer’s disease can benefit from music therapy to stimulate cognition, decrease anxiety and agitation, promote reminiscence and decrease depression. Through music therapy, someone with dementia can find their voice again.

Betsy Zuber, geriatric specialist, has been work-ing in the field of aging for 20 years. She provides

social services to people over age 55 and their families who live on Mercer Island. Contact her at (206) 275-7752, [email protected] or MIYFS 2040 84th Avenue S.E., Mercer Island, Wash., 98040. Mercer Island Youth & Family Services is a department of the City of Mercer Island.

Music played a roleRick Hennessey passed on the piano to play the drums. Despite a baby grand piano in the living room at his home, Penny played the sax and was in the jazz band at MIHS.

Scott Weller took piano lessons for a few years from Mrs. Van Valin, who lived on Merrimount. He worked hard to avoid practicing.

“I did take piano although I faked it half the time. I would hear my mom get home from work and run over to the piano to do the last few minutes

of my 30-minute daily practice. She’d walk in and go directly to the TV to feel if it was warm. I learned the right blue ice/towel combination to make it hum at room temp and not give me away, until one time she sat in the warm spot I’d left on the couch. I blamed the dog.”

He then switched to guitar, “which met a similar no-practice fate until I celebrated the TNS deal with an impulse Martin guitar purchase while walking to lunch one day in Novem-ber. I can now play ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ to my 8-year-old daughter.”

Music soothes the brain, too From previous page


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98040 Mercer Island Living: Home Works

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