Is It Time for This 95-Year-Old Pianist to Quit?

peter smidinger I agree, although the article brought up how she was having trouble playing in the ensemble festival she founded.

For solo playing, that is certainly true.

Larry Johnson Good for you! I appreciate hearing from another Larry who is still playing the piano at 88. 

Have you played your whole life? How many years of lessons did you have? Did you study piano  in school?

I just started piano lessons about eight years ago, although I dabbled a bit on my own way back in my 20s. That wasn’t very useful, even though I was with a piano teacher at the time, lol.

I saw Hank Jones, the famous jazz pianist, play in Paris when he was 90, if I recall correctly. 

The guys he lived with in New York, in a supportive facility, would try to get him to watch ball games but he’d say, I gotta go practice.

I gotta go make breakfast and practice a little. I have a lesson this morning. :)

Larry K Here is an excerpt from Hank Jones’ Wikipedia entry,

 “Even late in life, Jones continued to practice assiduously: "You have to stay in shape, so I do scales and exercises three or four hours a day, and then I practise sight-reading," he said at the age of 78.[29] Near the end of his career, Jones collaborated with some of the most noted pianists of the upcoming generation, making a two-piano recording of the Ellington/Strayhorn classic "Tonk" with Bill Charlap in 2007[30] and performing a two-piano concert with Brad Mehldau in Montreal in 2008.[31]

Jones lived in Cresskill, New Jersey, upstate New York, and Manhattan. He died aged 91 at a Calvary HospitalHospice in The Bronx, New York, on May 16, 2010, survived by his wife Theodosia.[32]”