Power To Transform a Life

by Ted Ganger

This is Ted Ganger, born and bred in Cleveland, Ohio, writing to you from Munich, Germany. And the reason is

MUSIC.

I had the good fortune to grow up in an affluent suburb of Cleveland. My father, especially, loved music and was a proud member of The Singers Club. And my parents had an upright piano and paid for piano lessons for my sister and me. This planted seeds that eventually led me to study at the Cleveland Institute of Music, then at the Juilliard School in New York, and then to a grant in Germany, where I worked for many years as a pianist and conductor in opera houses and later as a teacher at the state conservatory here in Munich. Along the way I've done just about everything a classical pianist can get to do, all over the world.

And about 15 years ago, I even started writing my own songs, which I love to sing and play for anybody who'll listen. Check them out on my YouTube channel here!

I've been incredibly lucky to have become a musician and to experience every day what music can do for me and for the people I get to share it with. Many others haven't been so lucky. But The Music Settlement is there for anybody and everybody who cares about music and its power to transform a life and a community. It so happens that one of my very first performances, almost 65 years ago, was at the annual class recital of my piano teacher - at The Music Settlement. So we're really old friends.

And now I feel lucky to be able to help The Music Settlement serve others, to give back a bit of what I received, and to be part of something that gives so much to so many in Cleveland.