Category: Marble Hill Projects

class pictures from P.S. 122, Exterior Street in the Bronx, graduation Yearbook from the New York City High School of Performing Arts, Harlem jazz hub, La SCAT jazz club, La SCAT jazz club on Lenox Avenue, Marble HIll Memories, Marble Hill Projects, Music soothes the savage breast, P.S. 122 in the Bronx, Piano World, Sandy Hamilton owner La SCAT club in Harlem, Shirley Kirsten, Shirley Smith Kirsten

Memoir: Shuffling through old Class pictures

arioso7: Shirley Kirsten

An old cardboard box that yielded my New York City High of Performing Arts Yearbook and a flood of memories, revealed my portrait. I looked innocent enough, with a riveting quote beneath: "I know what is missing in the barrel rather than what is there." Perhaps it was a time-honored insecurity that adolescents might disclose… Continue reading Memoir: Shuffling through old Class pictures

Bel Kaufman, Claudio Arrau, Daniel Waitzman, Elaine Comparone, Eugene Lehner, Franz Mohr, Gerard Schwarz, Herbert Gardner, Indiana University, James Gardner actor, Leon Fleisher, Lillian Freundlich, Lillian Lefkofsky Freundlich, Marble Hill Projects, Marjorie Janove, Menahem Pressler, Murray Perahia, Raphael de Silva, Roselle Kemalyan, Samuel Gardner, Seagate, Seymour Bernstein, six degrees of separation, six degrees of separation in the music world, Theodor Leschetizky, Vladimir Horowitz

Shrinking degrees of separation in the music world?

arioso7: Shirley Kirsten

The musical universe is smaller than we think. And perhaps this writing will incubate a linked chain of "connections" that will go further--especially since my relocation to Berkeley, California (September, 2012) So here it is: Now that I'm well past my Oberlin Conservatory student years, I notice that Lillian Freundlich, my beloved teacher during my… Continue reading Shrinking degrees of separation in the music world?

Bobby De Niro, Broadway theater, Elaine Comparone, Greenwich Village, Group Theater, John Garfield, Manhattan, Marble Hill Projects, New York, New York City, Off Broadway Theater, P.S. 41 in Greenwich Village

Our Family’s Cultural Tradition: The last remnant of my NYC trip (Photos) with an update on the history of Russian piano factories

arioso7: Shirley Kirsten

I scanned the memory card of NYC pics stored in my Sony digital camera and came across my mother, (on the extreme Left) and a few other key family members seated around a decorative party table. We were celebrating mom's 97th birthday at her "baby" sister, Leepie's regal and spacious Greenwich Village apartment off Fifth… Continue reading Our Family’s Cultural Tradition: The last remnant of my NYC trip (Photos) with an update on the history of Russian piano factories

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Rekindling Marble Hill memories, and a remarkable twist of fate

arioso7: Shirley Kirsten

I was deeply moved to have discovered the Marble Hill Reunion site which inspired my own cherished memories of the projects in the Bronx where I romped during my childhood and early adolescence. My family moved from Featherbed Lane near Tremont Avenue to Marble Hill when I was about four. It was quite a notch… Continue reading Rekindling Marble Hill memories, and a remarkable twist of fate

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Housing my Dream Pianos

arioso7: Shirley Kirsten

I grew up in the Marble Hill projects of the Bronx and lived on the ninth floor. The walls of our housing development were so paper thin that when I practiced on my Sohmer 1922 studio upright, my first dream piano, it would elicit nerve-racking thumps from the neighbor down below. To my embarrassment, I… Continue reading Housing my Dream Pianos