1937

Born Nancy Caballero in Chicago: congenital scoliosis

 

Before age 5

Fell in love with a neighbor's piano: no TV, no recordings, no idea of music or of a musical instrument

 

Age 6

Joined children's choir

 

Age 7

Began piano lessons: never practiced but fooled around constantly

 

Age 8

Quit piano lessons

 

Age 9

New teacher: practiced music, never scales or exercises

 

Age 14

Mozart K. 488 concerto with community orchestra: Heaven!

 

Age 15

Saint-Saëns G minor concerto with HS orchestra; disliked the piece for reasons then unknowable

Quit piano lessons: became professional organist 

 

Age 16-20​

Organ study with Fenner Douglass at Oberlin

B. A., Major in Music, Phi Beta Kappa

 

Age 20

Appointed Oberlin College organist

Senior recital: Bach Klavierübung, Part III (selections)

​Fulbright: organ with Helmut Walcha

​Informal chamber music with host family revealed the pianist I always wanted to be

 

Age 21

Full scholarship piano student of Hans Neumann at Mannes College of Music Extension Division, co-winner concerto competition after one year.  According to Neumann I would be a professional pianist within three years

​

Age 24 

Appointed Instructor of Piano, Oberlin Conservatory (one semester)

​

Age 25

        Spinal deformity precluded piano career;  I was crushed 

Carl Schachter suggested I read Viktor Zuckerkandl’s "Sound and Symbol," which affirmed the power of my earliest experience and offered a basis for teaching people who wanted music as much as I did

​

Age 27

Solo piano stopped by chronic muscle spasms caused by celiac disease, diagnosed only at age 57

 

In my 30's

Teaching based on Zuckerkandl:  listening without the printed score to hear as students heard in Mannes Prep (age 35) and Extension (age 38) Divisions

​Began playing limited chamber music

Intense ear focus: learned to play cello; tuned and played harpsichord; taught amateurs to sight-sing in tune (an 8-week experiment lasted for over 25 years)

 

Age 35

       Single lesson with Mieczyslaw Horszowski affirmed                         determination to pursue piano playing

​

Age 38

Inaugurated a non-competitive chamber music program at Mannes Extension Division, all instruments and levels 

 

Age 45

Incorporated Alaria Chamber Ensemble to assure independence of that program

 

Age 57

Use of TENS unit permitted a return to the unique sound of solo piano

Tonal Refraction arose at that moment from the vivid Proustian memory of the piano sound I had so loved as a very young child

​

Age 58

Presentation of TR at Albert Einstein College of Medicine brought it to the attention of Dr. Concetta Tomaino at Beth Abraham Health Services, where I worked as a volunteer

with several patients (Dr. Tomaino is now Director of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function)

 

Age 66

Mother, Daughter, and Friends: A Two-Generational Celebration of Up and Downtown Music: Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.  Wondering what might happen, I had engaged Rachelle in systematic eye-ear pitch awareness from the day of her birth.  She is an internationally-recognized, self-taught singer/song-writer who does everything by ear. 

​​​

Age 67

       Mannes College Division: Chamber Music Pedagogy

 

Age 70

A lifetime of improperly directed medical advice about my scoliosis plus thirteen years of playing beyond my capacity resulted in hand surgery, followed by ten years of intensive core muscle training 

 

Age 82

Properly supported arms connected my fingers directly to my ear-brain for the first time in my life

"Mozart: Modernist" series at Tenri Institute in NYC with Artie Dibble, viola/violin; Dave Eggar, cello; Ricardo Rivera, baritone

​

Age 87

Tonal Refraction Trio (Dibble, Eggar, myself): live recording of two late Mozart Piano Trios, the culmination of 5 years of intensive work on Brahms and Schumann

​

I had heard the elemental connection between their works and Mozart while listening to the uninhibited chamber music playing of teenage and adult amateur students at Mannes

Years of immersion in Tonal Refraction substantiated what I had heard

​

Watch the live recording session here