My dad Chester was a pianist and later a well-known television entertainer so football was never really something that was on his radar. However when I was a young boy a family friend took me to see an Arsenal game and from that moment on I was totally and utterly hooked.

Ainsley Harriott

I'm not saying that in order to be a great jazz musician you have to be a great classical pianist first. But I am saying that it makes things easier when you can get around the instrument, and you have some idea of how to approach the various hurdles.

Aaron Diehl

Music Men Great

I was depressed for a year after 'The Pianist,' and I don't suffer from that, generally. It wasn't just a depression; it was a mourning.

Adrien Brody

Year Us T

My dad Chester was a pianist and later a well-known television entertainer so football was never really something that was on his radar. However when I was a young boy a family friend took me to see an Arsenal game and from that moment on I was totally and utterly hooked.

Ainsley Harriott

Mom Men Family

I grew up in this industry. I'm a third generation actor, and I believe strongly that life and career are two different things. Career is inside my life. I'm also a photographer, a pianist, and lots of different things, so my life consists of so many different elements that there are moments when I have to step away and be me.

Alaina Huffman

Mom Men Life

I was much more interested in the orchestra than the piano, but I did become fairly proficient as a pianist and my teachers felt I had talent and wanted me to become a good concert pianist and earn my living that way.

Alan Hovhaness

Teacher Good Way

If you lock me in the room with a piano teacher for a year I might be able to knock out a rendition of 'Roll Out The Barrel,' but will I ever be a concert pianist? No.

Alan Sugar

Teacher You Year

When I was first starting out as a kid, I tried to pad my resume with everything I had ever done - ice-skate, carry a tune. I can't dance for my life, but I can learn, so I'll tell people I can dance. I play the piano - I'm a really good pianist, actually.

Alexandra Daddario

Life Good Car

When I was younger, I always wanted to be either a pianist or a classical singer, and when I discovered songwriting, it was like a new portal had been opened.

Alice Merton

Younger Young You

My dad was a fine pianist and he had a lot of great records and beautiful music.

Allan Holdsworth

Music Great Us

My mother was an opera singer and my grandmother a concert pianist, and they only liked classical music. If I put on a pop record, they would tell me to turn it off, so I only listen to classical.

Amanda Eliasch

Music Would Us

I wanted to be a veterinarian until I saw a video of a vet performing surgery on a dog. Then I decided I wanted to be a pianist.

Amy Lee

Wanted Want Video

My parents told me I would become a doctor and then in my spare time I would become a concert pianist. So, both my day job and my spare time were sort of taken care of.

Amy Tan

Time Car Would

When a little more than a teenager, I was a piano-bar pianist in the land where I was born and raised, Tuscany.

Andrea Bocelli

Teen Age Where

Have you ever heard of a pianist who never had to practice - or of an architect who didn't bother to find out why buildings stand up?

Anne Stevenson

You Why Who

I couldn't say I ever dreamt of becoming a composer, a pianist, or anything else for that matter. I have the kind of brain where nothing is set in stone.

Anthony Hopkins

Where Tone Ton

Pianists call me a composer, composers call me a pianist. The classicists think me a futurist, and the futurists call me a reactionary.

Anton Rubinstein

Think Thin T

I picked up some wonderful things just listening to other pianists that I appreciate, and that would be Herbie Hancock, Oscar Peterson, Vladimir Horowitz, and Art Tatum. Those are the pianists I really enjoy and admire.

Aretha Franklin

Pet Car Art

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes ah, that is where the art resides.

Artur Schnabel

Art Where Uses

I don't think I handle the notes much differently from other pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, there is where the artistry lies!!

Artur Schnabel

Art Where Uses

From early on there were two things that filled my life - music and storytelling, both of them provoked by my father. He was a jazz pianist and also a very good storyteller, an avid reader. He passed both those interests on to me.

Athol Fugard

Music Life Good

Roaring like a tiger turns some children into pianists who debut at Carnegie Hall but only crushes others. Coddling gives some the excuse to fail and others the chance to succeed.

Ayelet Waldman

'Andhadhun' is the most challenging film and character. For playing the role, first and foremost I had to learn how to play the piano and then how to emulate gestures of a blind pianist.

Ayushmann Khurrana

I was trained in classical piano, but it kind of dawned on me that classical pianists compete for six job openings a year, and the rest of us get to play 'Blue Moon' in a hotel lobby.

Barbara Kingsolver

The first jazz pianist I heard was Thelonious Monk. My father was listening to an album of his called 'Monk's Dream' almost every day from the time I was born.

Benny Green

I changed it to Leslie Hill, only that seemed more like a cocktail pianist. Eventually, being an admirer of Jack Benny, I took his name.

Benny Hill

My mother wanted me to be a concert pianist.

Bernie Worrell

The thing is, I'm not really a great pianist at all. But if God said I could either sing or play piano, and which would it be? I would definitely choose the piano.

Beth Hart

I've been classically trained in piano since I was little. My father was a pianist, so they started me early.

Beth Phoenix

I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. What I do, in my opinion, is by no means extraordinary.

Billy Joel

I've had to ban my mum from coming to see me play. She gets so nervous before any show. I've always got a few nerves but she's so much worse than me. You'd think she'd be able to handle that kind of situation. After all, she is a concert pianist.

Birdy

My mom's a concert pianist, so she started teaching me when I was around seven. When I was eight, I started writing my own songs, and kinda started putting piano and singing together. But I'm trained classically, which is a big influence on me, I think.

Birdy

Everything we did on the training pitch, we did with the ball. You'll never see a pianist run around his piano. People ask me, 'Why don't you run through the forest, through the trees?' Well, I've never seen a tree on a football field.

Brendan Rodgers

My mother was a classical pianist and my stepfather was an industrialist who was passionate about composing contemporary music.

Carla Bruni

My father was a classical pianist, and my mother was a singer of just about everything.

Carly Simon

Whenever I open a book about jazz, I turn to the index and look for Lennie Tristano, the incredible pianist; Lee Konitz, the luminous alto sax player; and Warne Marsh, the tenor player who captured some of the most beautiful sounds in the world.

Carolyn See

Mother, being a pianist, told me how to play with my fingers on the piano.

Cecil Taylor

It still amazes me how many musicians aren't really interested in engaging with their audience at all. Alfred Brendel, a pianist for whom I have the greatest respect, has described performance as a sacred communion between the artist and the composer. But what about the audience? Music is communication, a two-way street.

Charles Hazlewood

I come from a wonderful family. My mother was a pianist and my father was a salesman. They were very middle-class, very middle-Western.

Charles Kimbrough

The collective conscience of a hundred musicians is no light burden. Think for a moment of what it would mean to a pianist if by some miracle every key of his instrument should suddenly become a living thing.

Charles Munch

I like Stevie Wonder as my favorite non-pianist pianist. I mean, I shouldn't call him a non-pianist, because he's really a great pianist, but he doesn't feature it that much - he uses his keyboards and his piano technique to support his great songs and so forth, but he can really blow.

Chick Corea

Originally I studied as a musician, a classical pianist. That was my career before I took up acting in my late 20s.

Christian McKay

We've always connected musically in Fleetwood Mac because we're the only people who play more than one note. I'm not the best pianist, but I know how to interlace around what Lindsey's playing.

Christine McVie

When I was young, I played the piano and studied classical music and jazz. I wanted to be a concert pianist, and if I'd devoted myself to it, I could have been. But it would have been too much work and a very lonely life.

Christopher Plummer

I have great respect for Senator Cochran and the years of service he gave to Mississippi and the nation. I'll do my best to measure up to the standard he set as public servant - and as a pianist.

Cindy Hyde-Smith

I'm a pianist - I studied jazz piano in college.

Cory Michael Smith

I decided during my teens that I wasn't going to have the life of a concert pianist, much to the chagrin of a lot of people who had put a lot of money into me!

Cy Coleman

Classical pianist Awadagin Pratt. I first heard this eccentric and introverted performer when I was living in the Midwest. He was playing Brahms ballades - haunting.

Daniel Breaker

Yes, there were piano bands and great rock pianists, from Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard to Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, and Elton John. But something about the electric guitar speaks of more than music - it epitomizes and gives voice to the rebellion, power, and sexuality of rock.

Daniel Levitin

My mother Elizabeth Ivey Brubeck was a pianist who studied with Dame Myra Hess and Tobias Matthey. As a child in California I used to listen to her play Chopin.

Dave Brubeck

Do you think Duke Ellington didn't listen to Debussy? Louis Armstrong loved opera, did you know that? Name me a jazz pianist who wasn't influenced by European music!

Dave Brubeck