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Gibson strikes a chord with students
Hopes to pass love of piano on to others
By NIKIE MAYO, Staff Writer
Virginia Gibson, the congregation-proclaimed “artist in residence” at the First Presbyterian Church in Washington, has been playing the piano since she was 3.
“I started playing by ear and with one finger,” she said recently, recalling the beginning of her love affair with the instrument. That was 80-something years ago. And she still commands it.
When Gibson sits to play “All I Ask of You,” one of her favorite songs from “The Phantom of the Opera,” her living room takes on the aura of a concert hall. It’s clear that the piano is her domain. And as the notes ring through the house, it’s clear the keys and the pedals are under her spell — that she’s had a long relationship with music.
But she becomes spy-like and mysterious when asked exactly how long that bond has existed, a twinkle in her blue eyes. “I try not to tell my age. The children might say, ‘I don’t want to take music lessons from somebody that old,’” she said, laughing heartily afterward.
Gibson began taking piano lessons at 8. No one in her family had any formal training in music, she said, but she credits her father with her in-tune ear. “He could sing bass beautifully without a note.”
She studied piano at Meredith College in Raleigh, graduating in 1940. Her graduation recital there was “ the last time I put on a concert of my own,” she said in a recent interview. “It was quite an affair,” she said. “We had marshals and reserved seats and everyone was formally dressed. … I was queen for a day.”
After college, she went to New York and studied under legendary pianist Harold Bauer, who founded the Beethoven Association in New York and taught at the Manhattan School of Music. “But I only stayed for a little while,” Gibson said.
Today, she plays “dinner music” during social functions for various companies and organizations, she said. And every Sunday at 11 a.m., she plays meditations at the church, with her husband, Ed, accompanying her on the violin.
But Gibson’s students — who think she’s nice and funny and “pretty cool”— may well at the heart of her connection with the piano. She teaches about 35 students — “from 7 years old and up”— in her home every week. Some are adults, but a great many of them are children.
“This song is staccato,” she told Matt Skillen during a recent lesson. “That means you play like the keys are hot, almost like they’re going to burn you,” she said. And he did.
Later, she told Davis Lane Rumley, 12, that he was to “play so it sounds like popcorn.”
And he did. On the Chickering piano that Gibson’s father bought her from a store in Raleigh in the 1940s. “It was on sale,” she said. “It was one of the nicest surprises I’ve ever gotten.”
It’s the same piano on which so many students have taken their first lessons. When asked how many students she has taught over the years, Gibson was quick to answer. “Oh, my goodness. I can’t even imagine. There’s just no telling.”
She keeps a pad of stickers on the piano for students who’ve done good work for the week. “I want to make it fun for them. That’s what I enjoy — the fun and the fellowship,” she said.
I don’t ever want to turn anybody off of it. If I can pass that love on to somebody else, then I’ve done what I’ve most hoped to do.”
By NIKIE MAYO, Staff Writer
Virginia Gibson, the congregation-proclaimed “artist in residence” at the First Presbyterian Church in Washington, has been playing the piano since she was 3.
“I started playing by ear and with one finger,” she said recently, recalling the beginning of her love affair with the instrument. That was 80-something years ago. And she still commands it.
When Gibson sits to play “All I Ask of You,” one of her favorite songs from “The Phantom of the Opera,” her living room takes on the aura of a concert hall. It’s clear that the piano is her domain. And as the notes ring through the house, it’s clear the keys and the pedals are under her spell — that she’s had a long relationship with music.
But she becomes spy-like and mysterious when asked exactly how long that bond has existed, a twinkle in her blue eyes. “I try not to tell my age. The children might say, ‘I don’t want to take music lessons from somebody that old,’” she said, laughing heartily afterward.
Gibson began taking piano lessons at 8. No one in her family had any formal training in music, she said, but she credits her father with her in-tune ear. “He could sing bass beautifully without a note.”
She studied piano at Meredith College in Raleigh, graduating in 1940. Her graduation recital there was “ the last time I put on a concert of my own,” she said in a recent interview. “It was quite an affair,” she said. “We had marshals and reserved seats and everyone was formally dressed. … I was queen for a day.”
After college, she went to New York and studied under legendary pianist Harold Bauer, who founded the Beethoven Association in New York and taught at the Manhattan School of Music. “But I only stayed for a little while,” Gibson said.
Today, she plays “dinner music” during social functions for various companies and organizations, she said. And every Sunday at 11 a.m., she plays meditations at the church, with her husband, Ed, accompanying her on the violin.
But Gibson’s students — who think she’s nice and funny and “pretty cool”— may well at the heart of her connection with the piano. She teaches about 35 students — “from 7 years old and up”— in her home every week. Some are adults, but a great many of them are children.
“This song is staccato,” she told Matt Skillen during a recent lesson. “That means you play like the keys are hot, almost like they’re going to burn you,” she said. And he did.
Later, she told Davis Lane Rumley, 12, that he was to “play so it sounds like popcorn.”
And he did. On the Chickering piano that Gibson’s father bought her from a store in Raleigh in the 1940s. “It was on sale,” she said. “It was one of the nicest surprises I’ve ever gotten.”
It’s the same piano on which so many students have taken their first lessons. When asked how many students she has taught over the years, Gibson was quick to answer. “Oh, my goodness. I can’t even imagine. There’s just no telling.”
She keeps a pad of stickers on the piano for students who’ve done good work for the week. “I want to make it fun for them. That’s what I enjoy — the fun and the fellowship,” she said.
I don’t ever want to turn anybody off of it. If I can pass that love on to somebody else, then I’ve done what I’ve most hoped to do.”
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