Dr. Deon Nielsen Price: concert pianist, composer, music professor, mother of five
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1934, Deon Nielsen was living at Fort Clayton in the Panama Canal Zone around 1946, when her father was stationed there. She was already a pianist and, at age 12, had her first paying job as a ballet school accompanist. She and her family regularly attended concerts at the National Theater. At one, she heard pianist Arthur Rubinstein , and at another, pianist Gyorgy Sandor . "I even slipped backstage during intermission for their autographs," she remembers. Those great pianists inspired her to become a concert pianist herself. Nearly 60 years later, in June 2005 , Deon returned to Panama with her son, Dr. Berkeley Price, a clarinetist--this time to give a concert. "Returning to the site of my early ambition now completes a circle," she told the audience. Ironically, Gyorgy Sandor died later that year. Deon attended high school in San Francisco, and took lessons from C.W. Reid at the San Francisco Academy of Music. She accompa...