The Piano Lesson is a 1987 play by August Wilson.
The Piano Lesson may also refer to:
Joseph Harry Fowler Connick Jr. is an American singer, pianist, composer, actor, and former television host. As of 2019, he has sold over 30 million records worldwide. Connick is ranked among the top 60 best-selling male artists in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America, with 16 million in certified sales. He has had seven top 20 U.S. albums, and ten number-one U.S. jazz albums, earning more number-one albums than any other artist in U.S. jazz chart history as of 2009.
Martha Argerich is an Argentine classical concert pianist. She is widely considered to be one of the greatest pianists of all time. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argerich gave her debut concert at the age of eight before receiving further piano training in Europe. At an early age, she won several competitions, including the VII International Chopin Piano Competition and the Ferruccio Busoni Competition and has since recorded numerous albums and performed with leading orchestras worldwide.
Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboardist and composer best known as a member of the progressive rock band Yes across five tenures between 1971 and 2004, and for his prolific solo career. AllMusic describes Wakeman as a "classically trained keyboardist extraordinaire who plied his trade with Yes and developed his own brand of live spectacular in a solo act."
Artur Schnabel was an Austrian-American classical pianist, composer and pedagogue. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura. Among the 20th century's most respected and important pianists, his playing displayed marked vitality, profundity and spirituality in the Austro-German classics, particularly the works of Beethoven and Schubert.
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, producer, and director. Known for his work spanning over four decades of screen and stage, he has been regarded as one of the best actors of his generation, with The New York Times naming him the greatest actor of the 21st century in 2020. Washington has received a number of honors, including two Academy Awards, a Tony Award, three Golden Globe Awards, as well as the Cecil B. DeMille Award and AFI Life Achievement Award, and nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards.
The Piano is a 1993 historical drama film written and directed by New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion. It stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin in her first major acting role. The film focuses on a mute Scottish woman who travels to a remote part of New Zealand with her young daughter after her arranged marriage to a settler. The plot has similarities to Jane Mander's 1920 novel, The Story of a New Zealand River, but also substantial differences. Campion has cited the novels Wuthering Heights and The African Queen as inspirations.
Hans Florian Zimmer is a German film score composer and music producer. He has won two Oscars, four Grammys, and has been nominated for three Emmys and a Tony. Zimmer was also named on the list of Top 100 Living Geniuses, published by The Daily Telegraph in 2007.
Arthur Rubinstein KBE OMRI was a Polish-American pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time. He received international acclaim for his performances of the music written by a variety of composers and many regard him as one of the greatest Chopin interpreters of his time. He played in public for eight decades. His repertoire also included the works of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saëns, Schumann and more.
Alicia Roanne Witt is an American actress, singer-songwriter, and pianist. She first came to fame as a child actress after being discovered by David Lynch, who cast her in Dune (1984) and Twin Peaks (1990). Witt was a regular on Cybill Shepherd's sitcom Cybill (1995–1998) for four seasons, playing the title character's daughter, Zoe Woodbine. She had a critically acclaimed role as a disturbed teenager in Fun (1994), appeared as a music student in Mr. Holland's Opus (1995) and as a terrorized college student in the horror film Urban Legend (1998). She appeared in Vanilla Sky (2001), Two Weeks Notice (2002), Last Holiday (2006), 88 Minutes (2007), I Care A Lot (2020) and Longlegs (2024). Witt has made television appearances in shows such as The Walking Dead, The Sopranos, Friday Night Lights, Twin Peaks: The Return, CSI: Miami, Supernatural, and Orange Is the New Black.
John Francis Burke was an American lyricist, successful and prolific between the 1920s and 1950s. His work is considered part of the Great American Songbook.
Leon Russell was an American musician and songwriter who was involved with numerous bestselling records during his 60-year career that spanned multiple genres, including rock and roll, country, gospel, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, southern rock, blues rock, folk, surf and the Tulsa sound. His recordings earned six gold records and he received two Grammy Awards from seven nominations. In 1973 Billboard named Russell the "Top Concert Attraction in the World". In 2011, he was inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The Piano Lesson is a 1987 play by American playwright August Wilson. It is the fourth play in Wilson's The Pittsburgh Cycle. Wilson began writing this play by playing with the various answers regarding the possibility of "acquir[ing] a sense of self-worth by denying one's past". The Piano Lesson received the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Donald Romain Davis is an American composer, conductor, and orchestrator known for his film and television scores. He has also composed opera, concert and chamber music.
"Ombra mai fu", also known as "Largo from Xerxes" or "Handel's Largo", is the opening aria from the opera Serse (1738) by George Frideric Handel.
Gerald Linford Beckley is an American singer, songwriter, and musician, and a founding member of the band America.
"The Hearts Filthy Lesson" is a song by English musician David Bowie from his 20th studio album, Outside (1995), and issued as a single ahead of the album. Released in September 1995 by Arista, BMG and RCA, it showcased Bowie's new, industrial-influenced sound. Lyrically, the single connects with the rest of the album, with Bowie offering a lament to "tyrannical futurist" Ramona A. Stone, a theme continued in subsequent songs. The song is also meant to confront Bowie's own perceptions about the ritual creation and degradation of art. Its music video was directed by Samuel Bayer and was so controversial that it required a re-edit for MTV. The song appears in the end credits of the 1995 film Seven.
John David Washington is an American actor and former professional football player. He is the son of actor Denzel Washington and Pauletta Pearson. He started his career in college football at Morehouse College and signed with the St. Louis Rams as an undrafted free agent in 2006. Professionally, Washington spent four years as a running back for the United Football League's Sacramento Mountain Lions.
The Piano Lesson is a 1995 American drama television film directed by Lloyd Richards and written by August Wilson, based on his 1987 play of the same name. The film stars Charles S. Dutton and Alfre Woodard, and relies on most of its cast from the original Broadway production. The film originally aired on CBS on February 5, 1995, as an episode of Hallmark Hall of Fame.
Danielle Brooks is an American actress and singer. Her breakthrough role was as prison inmate Tasha "Taystee" Jefferson in the Netflix comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019).
Willie Boy was an early 20th-century fugitive from the law in Southern California.