Story KSL did on piano recital at Community Center

Gifted piano keeps on giving

December 15th, 2010 @ 9:55pm

By Amanda Butterfield

PROVO -- Several young pianists finished up their first piano recital in Utah County Wednesday night. It never would have happened without the donation of one woman -- Cindy Rogers. 

"I grew up taking lessons when I was young and played my whole life," Rogers said.

Cindy Rogers donated a piano to the children of South Franklin Community Center 

Divorced 15 years ago, Rogers had to provide for three children alone. Although she loved the piano, she never could afford to own one.

That is until one day when a piano showed up at her house.

"I was shocked!" Rogers said.

It was an upright Baldwin piano that, now, a whole new generation of musicians are learning to play on.

"It's fun playing the piano," said Sidney Nunez, one of the 10 or so youths who takes free piano lessons at the South Franklin Community Center in Provo.

In the past decade, Cindy's circumstances improved and she got another piano, but she couldn't bear to sell her old one, so she decided to pay it forward and donated it.

Sidney and her brother, David, have been taking lessons on it from BYU student Angela Gong, who is a volunteer teacher.

"Music has been important to me, so I was trying to find a way I could share that," Gong said.

Gong teaches about 10 children a week, sometimes more. She decided to hold a recital so her students could show their parents what they had learned.

"Me and my sister are playing 'Heart and Soul,'" David said.

Playing in a recital is something these students would never have been able to do if not for Roger's donation. Rogers is just glad others are enjoying her piano.

"Music just brings so much joy into people's lives," she said.

As for the whoever gave the piano to Rogers all those years ago, "I never found out," she said.

For video go to: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=13673769