My time with Stella Goldenberg Brimo

I began formal lessons in piano at age 7, but I had to stop after only a few months for reasons that remain unknown to me. Five years later and without informing my parents I registered for piano lessons with Corazon Coo (née Arevalo) at the music department of the then Philippine Union College at Baesa, Metro Manila. I simply presented the bill to my parents – they did not object. For the next five years Corazon Arevalo (she was unmarried at the time) taught me the fundamentals, technique and theory, and brought me to a level where I could begin to learn and perform a few favourites from the classical concert repertoire.

At one point I wanted to see what it was like in a university-level conservatory of music. I took summer lessons at the University of the Philippines College of Music under Benedicta Macaisa, pianist-pedagogue, followed by a semester with Imelda Ongsiako who was a student of the late Regalado Jose.

Back at the Philippine Union College, I continued piano lessons with Tomasita Pilar-Roda, Corazon Arevalo Coo having already left for the United States. I had by then finished my BSc in Chemistry at the University of the Philippines and was planning to pursue post-graduate studies. Under Mrs. Pilar-Roda, I began studying the Chopin Scherzo No.2, the Rachmaninov Prelude Op.23 No.6 in E-flat major, and Albeniz’s Asturias (Leyenda). In the short time I studied with her, I completed the Rachmaninov and the Albeniz, but not the Chopin. In recital, I had a memory lapse with the Rachmaninov and became so discouraged by the disaster that I gave up piano lessons. Not too long after I headed to the University of Minnesota St-Paul to begin my MSc program.

I could never stay away from studying piano. At the University of Minnesota, concurrent with all the science I was trying to master in my field, I enrolled at the Faculty of Music with the view to take the entrance exams for piano. I passed the audition with Bach’s Prelude and Fugue No.2 in C-minor from the Well-Tempered Clavier. I did not go on to the music degree program as I was already close to completing my MSc and already looking forward to moving to the Ohio State University in Columbus and go on for the PhD.

Shortly after I moved to Ohio State University, I married Grace Ramos who was also working on a doctorate. My mother-in-law, Socorro Ramos, knowing my love for piano, gifted us with funds to buy an upright. She knew that we would have never been able to buy a piano on our combined student stipends. Moving to the University of California-Davis for both our post-doctoral studies, Grace worked out a budget that allowed us to rent a piano. After three years in California, we moved to Montreal where I finally landed a tenure-track professorship at the Université de Montréal.

We bought a house in the suburbs of Montreal and soon after I began once more dreaming of purchasing a piano – not an upright – I hoped for a grand piano this time. We didn’t have the money even for a short baby grand, I soon learned. I kept looking and eventually found a cheap dilapidated 9-foot “Henry Miller” concert-grand stashed in a warehouse. I acquired it, and sent it off to Harout Nalbandian whom I found in the newspaper ads. The year was 1986. Harout Nalbandian was still operating out of his garage. He took a year to bring the piano up to what it can be. Such excellent work! Impeccable. It was effectively a brand-new 9-foot grand piano that took fully a sixth of the combined space of our living room and dining area! It was all worth the trouble and the space – the sound and mechanism came to exactly what I had desired.