Manny About Town
Washington Commands Miami Pianist

By Manny Meland

	Manny and Alan Mason

Miami’s Alan Mason was summoned to perform a piano recital of Hanukah music for the president of the United States. He and other Jewish performers were called to Washington, December 10, in celebration of the Jewish Festival of Lights. Mason played on the East Room’s 1938 Steinway D piano in the same venue as such legendary pianists as Ferruccio Busoni, Ignacy Paderewski, Josef Hofmann, Olga Samaroff and Sergei Rachmaninov. Before the event, Mason was quoted saying, “I’m going to be in the presence of greatness.”

Mason’s life and career have pointed him in this direction. “I knew from the age of 10 that a life as a performing pianist was meant for me,” he said.

Mason is an associate professor of music at Barry University, where he teaches piano and musical history, and has been accompanying the choir there since 1996. Last October 5, Barry University celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month Through Fine Arts. Mason and art historian Dan Ewing presented music and art from Spain in the Corpus Jesus Chapel of Barry University’s main campus. He declared that his goal is to provide a musically satisfying experience to each and every student that he comes in contact with.

	Mia Vassilev and Alan Mason

Mason also has a flourishing professional career as a pianist in sacred and secular Jewish music. He is considered an authority the subject. He grew up in a house where “Jewish music was always playing,” he says.  He has performed at the Limmud Conference in Nottingham, England and at several national conferences for the Union of Reform Judaism. He is featured on several CDs of Jewish vocal and choral music, and has had several works published by Trans-continental Music, the world’s premier publisher of Jewish music. Mason has performed throughout the United States, Europe, on television and radio and on recordings. He can be seen every Friday at Temple Israel of Greater Miami directing the music for the evening prayers.

I attended his piano recital last August 20 at the Steinway Gallery in Coral Gables. There he faced fellow pianist Mia Vassilev on twin Steinways. They thrilled the overflowing and standing room audience with their duo piano performance of classical composers Milhoud and Martin and played four hands, pieces by Debussy, Ravel and Faure. (See Manny About Town, Iissue 49).