I wasn’t a particularly well-behaved teenage in the early 1970s. Times were changing, society dynamics were expanding and there seemed to be more important things to demonstrate against than practicing the piano. I had been a bit of a small-town Wunderkind in my early years. That idea had been fostered by an equally small-town piano teacher with good intentions but I had been pushed unprepared into the local world of piano competitions. I folded under the pressure.

At 16, I wasn’t studying very much anymore. Then the new professor arrived at Boise State University. She was young! She was French! She had just graduated from Juilliard! And in walked Madeleine Hsu, a five-foot tall ball of energy and excitement and enthusiasm for things that I never knew you could be excited about: Messiaen, Chopin fingerings, Proust. She brought exoticism and big city verve into my life and I began to study again.

She immediately told me I had no technique and no finger strength. Musical and a quick learner, but not much else. Of course, I had grown up with Hanon, the evil torturer of young children everywhere but had long ago stopped practicing it. She gave me Cortôt. She gave me Bach. She instructed me to practice my scales and arpeggios in every key in four octaves. I had to have them good enough if she called them out that I could immediately play them.

She began to build my repertoire so that I had balanced programs and filled in the gaps of sonatas, etudes, concertos. She kept me interested and passionate. She inspired me. She drove me to practice harder and harder, longer and longer. In fact, she gave me this advice "when you practice, practice until you think you are going to die. Give it everything, every time you sit at the piano. Hold nothing back." I threw myself into every practice session but I never did die. This same advice I have given to all my conservatory and college students for the last 22 years.

A few years of travel and a marriage went by. At 21, I decided on my path: professional musician. No one told me that that was a crazy idea. Madeleine accepted me into the program at BSU and I continued my path. But now, I was confident that it was something I could achieve. That I could be good at it. I was working on my solo programs and accompanying everyone in sight.

One weekend, Madeleine called me and said "There are 5 great pianists in the world. You are not one of them. BUT you are a great accompanist and I think you should pursue that path." I cried that weekend thinking that I was taking the easy way out. But I took her advice and applied to the University of Southern California for the only accompanying program in existence at that time. And I have never looked back.

In my career, I was known for three things: extreme musicality, that I could play anything no matter how technically difficult and my sight-reading. I have Madeleine to thank for my technique which has given me a life time of music-making at the highest level with wonderful artists on beautiful stages in Europe and the United States. I was a professor for 22 years and have students all over the world. Madeleine gave me the tools and discipline to have a career and I cannot thank her enough. Music has been my solace and my vocation. To the woman who opened up the musical world for me, that made my fingers steel strong, that guided me into the best career option, I thank you from heart and wish you and all the returning students wonderful afternoons of music making. I will be there in spirit!!

Shari Rhoads

Conductor, opera coach, and pianist Shari Rhoads spent 20 years in Germany and Switzerland conducting opera. As a pianist, she has accompanied many of the greatest singers of our time: Montserrat Caballé, Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras, and Agnes Baltsa. She taught at the Musikhochschule Luzern, Conservatoire de Lausanne, Switzerland. She has performed at international festivals such as Aix-en-Provence, France, Beethovenhaus in Bonn, Germany and the International Luzern Festival. Shari was also guest music director at Way Off Broadway in Fairfield and conducted the New York premiere of Orphan Train.