Piano Lessons: 6 Songs for Tenor Voice and Piano

Written as a gift for a much-admired tenor, Andrew Fuchs. A setting of the group of six poems written under the “umbrella” title of Piano Lessons by American poet Billy Collins.

Piano Lessons was first published in 1995 in Collins’ book The Art of Drowning. The poems offer gentle, colorful, and playful glimpses into a narrator’s past experiences taking piano lessons and are memorable reminders of so many readers’ personal experiences with piano lessons, especially taken in childhood, as well as possessing magical imagery that turns something prosaic like the study of piano into something profound that goes beyond the particular instrument.

Piano Lessons was premiered on the “Funny Bone” concert as part of Lyric Fest’s art song series on Saturday, October 2, 2021 at Philadelphia’s Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill and on Sunday, October 3, 2021 at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, by tenor Andrew Fuchs and pianist Laura Ward.