PR for People Monthly FEBRUARY 2016 | Page 15

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."