Portland, Ore. – Stanley Waters was struggling to teach himself how to play the piano when I met him in August 2005. I recognized his unique talent immediately, and wrote a story for Willamette Week the very next month.

Stanley was raised in a broken home. For years his mother struggled with an addiction to crack cocaine and his father was nowhere to be found. Stanley has jumped between 12 public schools in his 18 years, and the piano was the one thing that, with very little exposure, somehow just clicked.

In spite of his rough childhood, Stanley has not only managed to teach himself to play the challenging works of Chopin, Beethoven, and Schubert (it helps that he has near perfect pitch), but he has taken on the task of private piano lessons with bravado. For the first time he is learning basic music theory, scales, fingering, difficult notation, and the history of the various composers and songs he is playing.

Last fall, Willamette Week readers responded with overwhelming support of the budding musician; through a music education fund set up by editor Mark Zusman, several thousand dollars were raised to pay for lessons with prestigious teacher Gloria Wiley, and local piano studio Sherman Clay helped secure him a state-of-the-art digital keyboard to practice on at home.

The photos above were taken at the studio, which hosts Stanley’s weekly lessons. Details about the Stanley Waters Music Fund follow the Willamette Week article above.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Thursday, September 14th, 2006 | Email This Post

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