piano-and-cello-and-friends.com

Click here for the higher-visual-quality version of this video!
Frédéric Chopin, who is our “other” famous great-great-great-great grandteacher, was of course from Poland. As was our great-great-great-great grandmother (on our father’s side), Ida Weisman Rice, who came to the United States around the year 1910, when she was about the age we Rice Brothers are now. [...]

Lately, our family has been re-watching the Ken Burns *Jazz* series. There is a wonderful interview segment with Artie Shaw. (He was an American jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader, widely considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians of his time.) Speaking of something which hugely influenced him when he was [...]

Click here for the higher-visual-quality version of this video!

Franz Joseph Haydn is three generations back, on our “teacherly tree,” from Franz Liszt, making “Papa Joe” our great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandteacher. So far, he’s better known for writing “The Haydn C,” which is what many people call his Cello Concerto in C, than he is for being part [...]

There are two reasons we wanted to welcome you with Franz Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.” First, we think it’s stunningly, vastly beautiful. And second, we want to honor two of the teachers who are most loved by us (and also the teachers you love the most)! (We intend to rhapsodize about such teachers… <smile>)
Franz [...]

Sometimes there’s a smile or a nod first, but we most often play music for people … a bit of piano, a bit of cello … before we talk with them. For us, this is like first handing someone a rose, to honor the beautiful music which lives in them (whether or not that “beautiful [...]