KU News Release

May 14, 2008
Contact: Jean Kygar Eblen, University Relations, (785) 864-8852.

Graduation stories: KU piano major holds success on the tips of his fingers

LAWRENCE — Imagine University of Kansas senior Nick Weiser as a 5-year-old sitting at the old upright piano in his dad’s bar in a western Kansas town. He can pick out and play by ear the tunes he hears on the radio. He has perfect pitch but doesn’t yet know it. It would be three years before his first piano lesson.

From that atypical beginning in Dighton, Weiser will graduate at the top of his class with a bachelor’s degree in classical piano performance and carry the School of Fine Arts banner at commencement May 18.

He studies at KU with Richard Reber, professor of piano and director of the piano division, who said, “It’s unusual for someone to be equally talented in classical and jazz, but he is.” Jack Winerock, professor of piano, added, “He’s won every award we can dream up over here.”

Reber, who is considered among the foremost performers of works by contemporary composer George Crumb, said Weiser is the first undergraduate to attempt Crumb’s “Makrokosmos I,” composed in 1972-73. Reber has been at KU since 1964.

For his April 27 senior recital, Weiser began practicing last August to master and memorize the ultra-complex 12-piece composition that takes at least 35 minutes to perform on the keyboard and on the internal piano mechanism strumming with such things as chains, thimbles and paper clips.

“He first saw this music when he came to our summer music camps, and I think he just decided it was something he wanted to do. He's an exceptional student,” Reber said.

When Weiser was 8, his parents, Richard and Linda Weiser, asked him if he wanted to take piano lessons.

“They didn’t expect me to want to, but I took right to it.” Weiser said. “Then they had to figure out a way to move that piano from the bar to our house.”

His father worked days at his construction business, nights at the bar. Mom is a hairdresser. The heavy ornate wood piano had been purchased for $500 for his family by Nick Weiser’s great-grandfather in 1895. Carting it back home took five or six men.

His first teacher was Delores Parris of Dighton; he took classical piano lessons from her for 10 years until he graduated from Dighton High School. When he was 10, Weiser also had begun taking lessons from the late Carol Giesick in Scott City, 25 miles west of Dighton. From her he learned to play popular music of the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and 1950s and began to perform at the Majestic Theatre Restaurant in Scott City. Another strong jazz piano influence came later from lessons Weiser took in Garden City from the late Grammy-nominated arranger and composer Frank Mantooth.

While in high school, Weiser took classical piano lessons for two years from Junghwa Lee, an Eastman School of Music doctoral graduate then living in Hays, about a two-hour drive northeast of Dighton.

Weiser first came to KU to attend Midwestern Music Camp after he completed sixth grade. He kept returning for seven summers, both for classical piano as well as jazz workshops. He said the chance to get to know the piano faculty at the summer camps became his impetus to want to attend KU. As an incoming freshman, he earned the Mary O. Fearing piano competition and received a full scholarship.

“Coming from a high school class of 16, I was expecting KU to be big and impersonal because it was such a large campus. But it felt like a small town to me.

“I think one of favorite memories of KU is sitting in the Wendy’s in Dodge City eating French fries with the chancellor. He had a meeting in the afternoon, and we flew out to Dodge on his plane before a program where he was to speak and I was to play,” Weiser said.

His plans include graduate studies at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, N.Y. Eventually, he hopes to complete doctoral studies, teach at the collegiate level and be able to perform with or conduct a jazz group or jazz orchestra.

Even as a high school student, Weiser’s talent kept him in demand for events and special occasions in and around his hometown. Weddings. Funerals. Conventions. Programs. Dinner theaters. Christmas programs at the Lane County Historical Museum across the street from his home. During a visit to his grandparents in Hawaii, his grandmother, a church organist, had arranged for him to perform for a radio audience estimated at 100,000.

At KU he’s a sought-after accompanist and performer with a demeanor that engages audiences. Of all the pianos Weiser has played while in Lawrence, his favorite, he said, is the concert Steinway grand at the Lied Center “because the tone quality is amazing. It’s so smooth.”

Although he’s a classical piano major, he says more performance opportunities have come from jazz-related music, particularly KU select jazz groups and a local Lawrence jazz trio.

“When I play classical, I’m more nervous, but when I play jazz I’m more relaxed and can perform to the fullest of my capabilities,” he said. “It seems the most natural path to take.”

Musical selections, all featured in his April 27 senior recital, include excerpts from:
• George Crumb's Makrokosmos I (composed 1972-73)
• Transcription by Franz Liszt of “Widmung” by Robert Schumann (Original: 1840; transcription in 1848)
• "My Song" by Keith Jarrett (composed 1977)

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