Care home moves in veteran musician’s grand piano so 86-year-old can play it again

As Sister Joan Miller sits down to a piano, she pauses and takes a low breath. 

Even during 86, her hands nictitate along a keys of a special piano — a final present her father gave her before he upheld away. 

“To a musician, song is not an adjunct. It’s essential to life. It’s essential to devout life. And this operated for me on both those levels.”

This month, Miller got to play on her possess grand piano for a initial time in roughly 4 years. The piano was changed to a Santa Maria Care Home in Regina only for her.

“When we put my hands on a keys, afterwards we wish to play,” Miller said, with a grin as she pauses in between songs. “The music’s already entrance out and customarily comes before we start to play, so we already have an idea.”

Miller has been during a home for about 3 years. She’s been distant from her piano for years.

Now when she plays, she’s concentrating and smiling again. 

“It’s like you’re being enveloped by it. we don’t know how to demonstrate it … it’s so wonderful.” 

Miller started personification a piano during age six. When she was 10, her family changed from Weyburn, Sask., to Regina, and she kept study piano during a Sacred Heart Academy. After high school, she became a Sister of Our Lady of a Mission. Miller eventually earned her associate in song from a Royal Conservatory of Music.

After relocating around, she staid in Brandon, Man., training all fall, winter and spring, and study in a summer. Teaching came naturally to a daughter of dual educators. 

“I adore song so much. we do unequivocally like operative with children and adults, too,” she said. “What we attempted to explain to them was a good adore for this instrument.”

Miller complicated during a University of Regina, University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, and Indiana University. She finished her PhD in song and complicated in Italy and London. She’s also adjudicated piano festivals opposite Canada.

While training in 1970, Miller’s father stopped by with a surprise. He gave her a Steinway grand piano. It was a final thing he gave her before he upheld divided in 1972. 

“He was so happy. He positively came and had me play for him and he only desired a piano,” she said. “And we consider he knew that it meant so most to me.”

Her father shabby her song career heavily by pulling her to keep going even on days she didn’t wish to. Now when she plays, Miller thinks of her father each time. 

After health issues began holding their fee on Miller, she changed into a caring home in Regina. She asked to come to Santa Maria Care Home in Regina’s south finish given of a chapel though longed to play again. 

Her piano was put into a caring of a former student, Gregory Chase. He hold onto it until final week, when a caring home started relocating it in. Professional movers messy and reassembled it in a chapel area. 

“I’ve been in sky ever since,” Miller said. “It only speaks to me.

“I wish to adore it. we wanted to cuddle it.”

She wishes she could play during her best, though her arthritis hurts her and she can’t conduct a pedals as good as she used to. 

Opening her piano to others 

Now that it’s in Regina, Miller hopes other artists or students underneath a clever watch of their teachers would take a event to play on a Steinway during Santa Maria. 

“It’s got to be people who value it. And I’ve been really advantageous here given they’ve given me and my piano such a comfortable welcome,” she said.

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sask-woman-reunited-with-piano-years-apart-1.5404325?cmp=rss