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Awakening (MP3 album)
12 MP3 Songs in this album (55:53) !
Related styles: EASY LISTENING: Adult contemporary, NEW AGE: Contemporary Instrumental
Details:
I guess I was born with music in my blood. When my sister started taking piano lessons at age six, my four year old fingers couldn’t stay off the keys either. I’d copy everything she did, playing each song as she played it. It was enough to convince my folks that I needed lessons too.
By the time I was ten years old, everyone was calling me a child prodigy. I didn’t know much about what that meant; only that I needed to play. Music was as essential for me as breathing.
We moved to St. Petersburg, Florida when I was 12 years old. It was there that my classical training took off in a big way, when I was accepted as a student by Cuban-born piano legend Mercedes de Soler Sebastia. From the very start of our journey together, she began grooming me for the Van Cliburn competition. Four to six hour daily practices were commonplace. I loved every minute of it; even the frustrating moments when my fingering refused to cooperate, or my back ached with exhaustion.
After a year under her tutelage, Mercedes sent me to Miami for additional training with another legendary Cuban-born concert pianist; Jorge Bolet. It was a pivotal period in my life; working with a brilliant driven instructor who had been where I wanted to go, who could still command respect in the finest concert halls the world had to offer, and had a mastery of the piano that brought tears of joy and admiration to my eyes.
I was determined that one day I would be just like him.
Unfortunately it was not to be. Not yet anyway. A few years later my parents divorced, and my beloved Baldwin grand piano was sold to pay for necessities. Gone forever were dreams of the Van Cliburn competition, though my yearning for the piano remained. I played for my high school’s choral department, accompanying soloists and choirs; then practicing for long hours after school in empty rehearsal rooms on the only pianos available to me.
After high school, I performed at various piano bar venues throughout Florida, and then enlisted in the United States Navy. After my military commitment I became a nurse in Los Angeles, California. I spent over 20 years working to pay the bills; rarely communing with my first love. I’d play for an occasional party, or bar gig, but my spare time was consumed as a student enrolled in the school of hard knocks, where painful experiences added layer after layer to the man I was, as well as the man I was yet to become...much like the rings of a tree.
Then when the time was right the Lord threw me a curve ball; one that brought me full circle, returning me to my roots. My mind was filled with music, original compositions that pulsed through my fingers to the keyboard. I’d bolt out of a sound sleep with tunes running through my brain, spending night after night creating, purging the pain that lay within, and in doing so finding a peace I’d never known before.
After countless hours of writing and recording, my CD project “Awakening” is the product of that return. “Awakening” is the story of my life with its joys, sorrows, lessons learned, and the healing that comes from music. My high school friend Michelle Close-Mills, author of numerous short stories for the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series described my music as “reflective of a soul who has lived, loved, lost, suffered and discovered grace". I’m grateful to Michelle for her devoted friendship, the countless hours she put in listening to numerous music tracks, providing technical and compositional suggestions as well as her unfailing support of this project as it progressed from infancy to completion.
I pray that each note, each measure, each song in this collection will touch the chords of your heart as they have mine.
Frank E. Panzino
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