Cole Anderson

I met my friend Betsy at Cole's concert this evening. I saw other music buddies there too. I've known Cole since he was around 12 years old. His mom Deborah and I got to know each other when we had back to back radio programs on KZAZ, our local radio station. Deborah's show featured classical guitar. Mine was mostly choral, vocal and early music. I played recordings of the Whatcom Chorale and other local musical organizations. Deborah and I became fast friends. (A bit of a joke here as there wasn't much time between our two shows.)

The Anderson family joined us for New Years 2000 when we had a musical celebration as part of the party. Cole played piano. His brother Devin played violin. Another fellow named John, an adult, also played violin. Deborah played guitar and if I remember correctly our friends Chris and Jyl did a bit of jazz singing and guitar as well.

Fast forward 17 years and Cole is now a graduate student in piano performance. He is married to another fine pianist Siyuan Li from China. Tonight Cole presented a solo concert. It was fantastic. Tomorrow night it's Siyuan's turn. And the two of them will be playing a four hand piano piece by Devon who is now a composer. And their dad Mike also sings and plays guitar, and writes songs. He wrote one for Arvin's celebration of life. 

Cole just keeps getting better. Tonight he played a very complex and wonderful program. His hands flew so fast over the keys that it was hard to see them. And he played as he always does, with wonderful finesse and emotion. He played a set of seven etudes on Gershwin songs by Earl Wild (really a tour de force with wild passages of flying fingers), Schubert's impromptu in G-flat major, the piano sonata in F-sharp minor by Muzio Clementi, Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, and Mozart's piano sonata #2 in F major. He then played two encores. The first was "Summertime" and it took me right back to Arvin's celebration of life where Jason, Chris and Jyl performed that and I joined them.

After the concert I spent a brief time with Cole and his family before heading home. I'll be going back tomorrow to hear their second performance. I am so lucky to be friends with these wonderful folks, and to watch as Cole (and Siyuan) mature into professional musicians right before my ears.