The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University

Her Passion for Piano Goes Back Nearly a Century

The piano teacher is wearing glasses and the student is not. This is to be expected when Saryana Lebedev meets with most of her pupils, who are kids.

But this particular student, Orgine Huss, is 92 years old.

Huss looks intently at the music score, and her fingers move fluidly across the keys as she plays her favored romantic repertory during one of her weekly lessons at Peabody Preparatory’s Towson branch.

“She’s exceptionally gifted and her love for music is extreme,” Lebedev remarks of her most senior pupil. Huss responds to such praise by calling her teacher “honey.” Their student-teacher relationship goes back around six years, but Huss has been taking piano lessons with other instructors at the Preparatory since 1980.

After retiring from her own career as a grade school teacher, Huss felt the Preparatory lessons would enhance the piano playing she’d been doing at home since her childhood in the early 1900s.

“I always just played for my own pleasure. I was never a professional musician,” Huss says, while seated beside the piano in a Preparatory studio.

“But you could have been,” interjects Lebedev.

“I’m not that gifted,” Huss responds. “I’m not good enough for that, for heaven’s sake. I wasn’t gung ho to set the world on fire. I can’t memorize. I’m simply note-bound.”

Their affectionate verbal duet eventually gives way to the lesson itself, as Huss looks over the score and begins playing Brahms’ Rhapsody in g minor, about which she later says: “It lay dormant for years. I played it in the early ’50s and I’ve resurrected it.”

Huss grew up in Iowa, where her piano-playing mother encouraged her to learn the instrument at age 6. “Every family took piano lessons. I was one of these rare kids who liked to practice,” she recalls of the distant era when proper households had a piano in the parlor.

After receiving her college degree and teaching for a time in Iowa, she and her late husband moved to the Baltimore area, where she taught at Dundalk Elementary School for 19 years. She often played the piano to accompany songs in the classroom, and she also played in the home where she and her husband raised their daughter.

Huss’ directness in describing her life extends to her approach to music. “I’m strictly an emotional pianist, a romantic. I love schmaltz. I know almost nothing about theory. I’m emotional about music, but I cannot analyze it. I like the fact that Saryana lets me have my way and doesn’t insist on my studying theory.”

“We do have to count,” Lebedev asserts.

“My sense of theory is not that great,” Huss insists.

As this lesson winds down, Huss prepares to drive herself to her home in northern Baltimore County. Gathering up her things, she’s smartly dressed right down to the piano-shaped brooch adorning her blouse.

“Everyone comments on how young I am in my outlook,” she says. “They don’t think I’m 92. Most old ladies are decrepit at that time. This is a worthwhile activity. I want to keep myself involved with people.”

—Mike Giuliano

 

Three Preparatory Teachers Garner Honors

Doreen Falby became the inaugural recipient of the Suzanne Seff Kuff Excellence in Teaching Award. Falby has been the director of the Peabody Children’s Chorus since 1992, leading weekly rehearsals with three different age groups on two different campuses. In nominating her for the honor, students underscored Falby’s ability to guide them in becoming well-developed musicians.

Christian Tremblay (GPD ’02) became a member of the Preparatory violin faculty in 2002. He has a reputation for inspiring the best in his students, whether developing very young violinists or preparing advanced students to be violin majors in college. Students and parents alike are impressed with his careful and thoughtful instruction, dedication to teaching, and responsiveness.

Barbara Rosenberger began teaching piano in the Preparatory in 1983. During her tenure she has served as coordinator of the Suzuki Piano Program. Students and their families recognize Rosenberger’s special ability to tailor her instruction to each individual. She also regularly coaches parents in how to provide the most effective support. Rosenberger and Tremblay are dual recipients of the Hilda and Douglas Goodwin Excellence in Teaching Award.

—Donna Young