This is Fresh Air.

I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Rose.

Today we're re-broadcasting Terry's interview with pianist Jeremy Dank.

When it aired originally in March, it was preempted on many stations by coverage of the

Supreme Court nomination hearings of Katangi Brown Jackson.

Here's Terry.

My guest is pianist Jeremy Dank.

If you've ever taken music lessons or if you appreciate the Insights musician's share

about the music they play, I think you'll enjoy what he has to say.

He's in acclaimed classical pianist who's also a fine writer with a gift for explaining

the structure of the pieces he performs and what makes them technically and emotionally

exciting.

He's written a new memoir called Every Good Boy Does Fine, a love story in music lessons.

The title refers to a phrase children learn when they first start to read music to help

them memorize the notes on the five lines of the treble clef.

Those notes, EGBDF, correspond to the first letter of each word in Every Good Boy Does Fine.

The book is about how he learned to play, the teachers who shaped him, and what it was

like to be a classical prodigy in a world where few kids cared about classical music and

some truly hated it.

Dank received him a Carthor Fellowship, aka the Genius Award, and the Avery Fisher Prize.

His recording of the Goldberg Variations reached number one on the Billboard Classical

Chart.

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