When he wrote the lyric, “I was born/ One dark gray morn/ With the music comin’ in my ears,” Paul Simon could have had Talman Welle in mind. Whether it really was dark and gray is not certain, but this is Bremerton, Washington we're talking about, so chances are good that it was. He certainly came into the world surrounded by music.
Scientists now tell us that babies are affected by music in utero. So maybe it was preordained that Talman Welle would be a musician.
“I did have both the genetic component of both my parents being musicians, and having music everywhere in my life, growing up,” Talman said. “There was always music playing, growing up.”
His mother, a concert pianist and teacher, as well as a composer of her own music, became his first piano teacher, instilling in him a lifelong love of the classics. His father was a rocker, a keyboardist with a touring band in the 1960s and ‘70s. So Talman also grew up with a louder influence, with a hard, four/four beat. Particularly after his father decided it was time to take him on tour.
“In 1968 he decided he wanted to go back on the road. So, I grew up after age five on the road, surrounded by a bunch of rock musicians – which is as colorful as it sounds,” Talman said. “It was like the Flower Era, and I remember being on a blanket at rock concerts and seeing all these hippies walking around with long hair. By the time I was in seventh grade, I’d gone to about 50 different schools. There was a time when we had a tutor travelling with us, too. But it was kind of nice, you were on your own schedule."
In 1974 the family settled down in Bremerton again and he has largely stayed in the Puget Sound area since. Following in his mother’s footsteps, Talman Welle received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in piano performance from Central Washington University and began teaching piano in 1986. He has performed compositions by his mother, Martha Thatcher, who passed away in 1993, in concerts around the region, and has recorded a CD of her music.
Talman Welle has been a professor of music at piano at Olympic College, in Bremerton since 1988, and has maintained a large successful studio of private students in Seattle, Bremerton, Silverdale and Poulsbo. While his first love is classical, which is what he performs in public, Talman plays and teaches a variety of styles, from jazz to popular, as well.
Was it preordained then? Did he ever want to do something else?
“I don’t think there’s an artist or a teacher that does what I do,” he said, “who hasn’t at some point in their life, thought, ‘What am I doing?’ Or, ‘Why didn’t I do this?’ But if you really can’t imagine yourself doing anything else, then you’ve picked the right thing to do. I really love teaching and performing and I can’t imagine myself doing anything differently.”
This March, Talman will be performing at two locations in the Seattle area, Stage 7 Pianos in Kirkland, WA on March 13 at 4 p.m. and, on March 26 at 7 p.m. at the Steinway Gallery in Downtown Seattle. On the program will be "Carnaval," by Franz Schumann, op. 9. He said with most programs, he would warm up with gentler works. "The Schumann ‘Carnaval,’ you just have to come out and be ready with all of that energy,” he said. He will also be playing a set of contemporary pieces by British composer Cyril Scott, including a rare and uncataloged work: "Introduction and Fugue."
Manny Frishberg
For more than 30 years Manny has been a professional journalist and writer.
