Pnina Becher

A Pianist Reunites With Her First Love

by Aliya Hassan

On a clear Saturday morning in Scottsdale, a perfected piano sonata gently floats from an attractive two-story home and lingers in the street. Each finger has found the right key, the instrument has found the right musician, and after more than 17 years of retirement from music, Pnina Becher has once again found her love of piano.

A story outlining the struggle of a pianist who for years refused to lay her hands on a piano would be compelling—the hours spent recapturing talent, re-learning the basics and earning the respect of new fans and peers. But that is not Becher’s story. After she revealed an obsession with piano at a young age, Becher soon conquered the instrument—only to give it up years later because of a lack of family support. Amazingly, when she decided to make the return to music, now with a husband and three kids, it wasn’t much of a struggle at all. In fact, it was rather easy.

Becher is now a Steinway artist, a title that places her among the ranks of the most skilled piano players in the world. She has recorded two well received albums, including the critically acclaimed Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which received praise from The New York Times and several international publications. Her tours in the U.S., Europe and Israel have been met with more standing ovations than one can count, and Becher’s unique interpretation of classic musical pieces leaves audiences around the world in awe. Her success is unheard of—not only because she is a woman, but because she ventured away from the beaten path and found a different route to the top.

A Budding Romance

Becher was born in Israel of American parents. Learning to play piano was the norm for many of her young Israeli girlfriends, and in the first grade, she wanted badly to take lessons with the rest of her classmates. Her parents refused and a disappointed Becher was forced to longingly sit in on the piano lessons her friends received, angering teachers by correcting her friends’ mistakes before the instructors got a chance. It wasn’t until her fourth-grade year that her parents finally hired a piano teacher. Revealing of her innate talent, after her many hours listening to her friends’ lessons, Becher had already picked up the basics of piano.

“It sounds tragic, but it wasn’t. It’s just I learned to play piano totally by ear,” says Becher. “There was no piano in the house, but I learned. Finally in the middle of fourth grade, a miracle happened and they let me go.”

A miraculous opportunity indeed, and thankfully, the opportunity was anything but wasted. Becher soon found herself even more dedicated to learning piano; walking by herself across town several times a week and across a dangerous bridge just to get to practice. But while an interest for music steadily grew in Becher, her parents and teachers remained unconvinced of her talent.

During an important piano recital at which all the students’ parents came in support bearing cakes and juices, Becher’s parents were no-shows. “I was so young, I just thought, ‘That’s weird,’” Becher recalls. Adding to the stress, the town’s Russian piano teacher, who wore long sleeves to conceal numbers tattooed on her arm from her days at a concentration camp, suddenly retired—leaving Becher without lessons yet again.

Then, in the 1970s, many Russian Jews were allowed to leave Russia, causing a flood of doctors, teachers and other professionals to seek solace in Becher’s hometown. Among the refugees was a Russian pianist who relocated to Israel with her husband. Seeking work, the instructor went house-to-house, advertising her services. Whether by luck or fate, she visited Becher’s home and offered at-home teaching, the perfect solution to Becher’s parents’ concerns about convenience.

Soon, the two were tackling the work of well-known composers, and her teacher’s excitement about her high-level of talent gave Becher confidence in her skills for the first time. “She started treating me like a musician, she revealed [and] opened doors for me,” explains Becher. The beginners’ lessons were passed over, and her instructor immediately introduced Becher to the advanced music of famous Russian composers.

Even with a new teacher and steady lessons, things weren’t perfect yet—Becher still didn’t have a piano of her own. For her sessions, Becher used her neighbor’s piano. The neighbor was a nurse who worked a hectic—but perfectly suited—night shift. “We had an arrangement,” says Becher. “She had a picket fence, and if the rain boots were upside down, then that meant she’s back from her shift and she was sleeping so I could not enter the house. If there were no rain boots on the picket fence, I could go in.”

This routine wouldn’t last long. Soon enough, her piano teacher convinced her parents to get a piano, and an uncle mailed his used piano to their home in Israel. “That really changed everything, having my own piano in the house,” says Becher. ”I couldn’t wait to start practicing; I was so eager to play and by 7 a.m., I just couldn’t hold it in anymore. I was annoying. I needed piano lessons. I needed an instrument and I was practicing all the time.”

Walking Away

Now, Becher had everything. But after years of furthering her musical prowess with the strokes of her fingertips, at the age of 22, she abruptly quit. She told most inquirers that she quit to focus on a budding family life, but now she admits that there were other, more painful reasons behind her decision to walk away from music. “I think it has to do with [the fact that] I had zero support,” says Becher. “I don’t remember anywhere or any time my family, my parents, telling me, ‘You’re good.’ It just didn’t happen. It was years and years of accumulated disbelief. None of my immediate family members or my professors told me that I was good, that I had it in me.”

So, without looking back, she walked away—for 17 years. And for Becher, quitting meant more than giving up her career in piano. During these years, she pursued a career in artist booking and management and refused to touch or even listen to her favorite instrument.

She would remain painfully opposed to the piano until she neared her 40th birthday. In what some might describe as a midlife crisis, the love of music that had been hibernating in Becher for almost two decades experienced a sharp awakening, and despite a family of three daughters and a husband, a full-time career and a comfortable lifestyle, Becher began considering the idea of rekindling her love affair with the piano.

Finding a Lost Love

“I remember this earthquake inside,” she says. “I felt strange feelings inside me, and at that time, my life was perfect. I was earning very, very well. I was living the American dream.” The American dream Becher describes entailed a New Jersey mansion, the perfect neighbors and three happy children. Still, Becher wasn’t content. “I was crying inside, I was crying inside,” she says.

Satisfying that funny feeling in her gut and silencing the internal tears, Becher quietly returned to piano. “I went to the back to where I stored all my music, I pulled it, and I started playing it,” Becher explains. “I literally started from where I stopped. It just started naturally.”

Somewhat embarrassed by her sudden career change, Becher was hesitant to share the news with her family. “I was too shy to tell my kids that I took a leave of absence from work for three months,” says Becher. ”I couldn’t tell them, so I made them think I was going to work. I didn’t have the courage in me to tell them that my life was changing.” After eventually mustering up the courage, she shared the news with her family and began actively pursuing a career in piano once again. The music industry greeted the gifted musician with open arms, and now, the woman who once walked away from everything piano is one of the most appreciated players in the world.

These days, Becher travels the globe, sharing her love of music and ambitious talent. Currently touring with a program dedicated to Neopoltian composer Domenico Scarlatti, she skillfully undertakes 18 sonatas while narrating concert-goers on the life and loves of the famous composer as they sip on an elegant selection of wines in a candle-lit room. She aims to “challenge” the typical piano recital format by creating an interactive, peaceful environment for piano lovers to escape from the technology and television obsessed world of today, and travel back in time to the more romantic, warm times of yesteryear.

While taking her concert-goers back in time, Becher now happily lives in the present. Showing her bravery by doing what most women would assume it is too late to do, she lives her life with complete satisfaction and free from regret. “I really don’t regret it,” she says. “Hillary Clinton and many others have said, ‘It’s simple to look back.’ It’s water under the bridge; it doesn’t matter. For 17 and a half years, I didn’t touch a piano, I didn’t walk into a piano recital even as a listener, didn’t take lessons, didn’t do any of that. But, I found my way.”

Aliya Hassan is the Assistant Editor of Phoenix Woman.