JIM PROSSER
JIM PROSSER
BIOGRAPHY
Jim Prosser is a pianist and pedagogue who has maintained a passion for guiding young musicians for over forty years. Jim graduated with his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Toronto, where he studied piano with Patricia Parr, and he continued his piano studies after graduation with Margaret Parsons-Poole. Jim also holds a Bachelor of Education degree from Western University, where he was awarded the Don Wright Award for excellence in teaching Vocal Music. Jim taught Music and Special Education with the Thames Valley District School Board for many years, where he developed a unique program for students with developmental disabilities that combined elements of music therapy through song and active play. Upon relocating to Chatham in 2005, he continued teaching for the Lambton Kent District School Board. Throughout his career as a public school educator, Jim always maintained a busy private studio, teaching piano, theory, and music history. His students have been accepted to the top music schools in Canada and the US, and regularly win awards and scholarships at music festivals and competitions throughout the province.
Jim has worked extensively as a collaborative pianist, first at the University of Toronto, and later, with choral organizations such as the York Philharmonic Choir, the London Fanshawe Symphonic Chorus, the Gerald Fagan Singers, the Chatham Cultural Centre Chorale, and the Windsor-Essex Youth Choir. Jim has also worked as both music director and collaborative pianist with organizations such as Theatre Kent, Studio Black, and the London Community Players for their productions of Oliver, A Disney Spectacular, Billboard, A Christmas Carol, and Gaslight.
Jim has a strong commitment to the many charitable organizations in his community, and he has given numerous benefit concerts for the Children’s Hospital of Western Ontario, the Canadian Hearing Society, Camp Wendake (for children and adults living with HIV/AIDS), Community Living Chatham-Kent, the Chatham Kiwanis Music Festival, and the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance.
Jim is a firm believer in the special ability of music to build bridges and to reach across the boundaries that separate us. He maintains that studying music provides individuals with critical opportunities to be creative, to develop their independent learning skills, to recognize and analyze patterns, to be self-reflective, and to persevere in overcoming challenges. To listen to Jim talk about the music he loves, and to hear him play, please click on recordings.
The History of my Steinway
Everyone who knows me, knows that I love pianos - playing them, listening to them, exploring and learning about them. Over the years, I have owned eight pianos, each of which I have appreciated for different reasons. Like Glenn Gould, the famously obsessive Canadian pianist, I suppose I have always been searching for the perfect piano.
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This is my principal piano, a New York Steinway D, built in 1969. This instrument was part of Steinway’s Concert Division, a fleet of superior instruments made available exclusively to visiting Steinway artists. Steinway assigned random CD numbers to their concert pianos so that artists wouldn’t always choose the newest instruments; my piano is known as CD 131. I've owned this piano for over 20 years. In the mid-1980's, I first played this piano when giving a recital at Von Kuster Hall at Western University’s Faculty of Music. Western had two Steinway Ds from which to choose, but CD 131 was so superior that I always played it whenever I gave recitals there. It was put up for sale in 2004, and I was able to purchase it. It has been my delight all these years.
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In early February of this year, I was reading Katie Hafner's wonderful book, A Romance on Three Legs, about Glenn Gould's obsessive quest for the perfect piano. In Katie’s book, I came upon a passage in Chapter Nine where she recounts the time Gould was testing out two newer Steinways at Eaton Auditorium in Toronto on March 11, 1976. One of them was CD 230, and the other was CD 131. Needless to say, I was happily surprised to read that Gould had played my piano. A recording of Gould’s session and his comments exists in the Canadian Archives and can be heard here at 50 minutes, 23 seconds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW7ZIucl3c4
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CD 131 was nicknamed "The Mussen Special" because the head of Eaton's concert division was Muriel Mussen, and she encouraged most visiting artists to Toronto in the early 1970s to use it for their concerts at Massey Hall and Eaton Auditorium. Gould did not like CD 131. He found it “sluggish, but evenly so,” heavy and cumbersome, with a tendency to go out of tune.
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I laughed when I listened to this archival recording because today the piano is nothing like it was when Gould played it. I wrote to Katie Hafner, introduced myself as the current owner of CD 131, and explained some of its history to her. She is a delightful person and responded to me in short order.
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Katie contacted the Glenn Gould Foundation to see if they would be interested in knowing more about this piano. They agreed that this would make an interesting story for their listeners, and suggested that Katie interview me to hear the full story. The resulting interview was heard on the podcast, The Gould Standard. In this episode, we discussed the full history of the instrument, and how it came to be mine. That interview took place in late April of 2023. A few months later, Michael Berec of the Glenn Gould Foundation recorded me playing Schubert’s Impromptu in G flat, Op. 90, Nr. 3, and Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G sharp minor, Op. 32, Nr. 12, so that people could hear the sound of CD 131 today.
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The podcast was released January 18, 2024. Here is the link:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2A91qDvuJ8&list=PLiAEmTuPXrVship-J6ihn0GKXvC3WgmJ7&index=1
CBC Radio Interview, January 31, 2024.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/glenn-gould-piano-didnt-like-1.7100441
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Recordings