JAMES AND SUSAN MCKEEVER’S STORY

Jim began piano lessons in third grade with a young woman who was teaching lessons down the street.  He quit taking lessons after six months, but restarted 3 years later when his grandfather began teaching Jim and his 6 siblings.  Jim’s grandfather,Harold Irvin McKeever, was Manager of Purchases for the Union Switch & Signal division of Westinghouse Air Brake Company.  H.I. wanted to teach piano for a living, but his wife did not feel that was a secure enough way to make a living.  After H.I. retired from WAB, he taught music at Bergstrom's in Pittsburgh PA.
More info about Jim’s grandfather: H.I. was the director of the orchestra at McKeesport's First Baptist Church for many years in the 1920s and 30s. He was a piano and music theory teacher, songwriter (along with brother Caleb Way McKeever, he published gospel music as early as 1919), sang tenor with the YMCA Male Chorus, directed a choir at the city's First Reformed Church and served as organist at Central Presbyterian Church, Brownsville. AND HE WAS A MAGICIAN WHO PERFORMED AT CHILDREN'S PARTIES.
Jim’s grandfather lined up Jim and his 6 siblings on Saturday mornings and they all had piano lessons from him on the George Steck grand piano in the living room (stretching over a period of years).  In the summer after Jim’s junior year in high school, Jim (at the urging of his grandfather) began piano lessons with John Austin Holland of the University of Pittsburgh.  The summer after his senior year in high school, Jim practiced piano 8 hours a day in the basement of his family’s house on an old upright.  Jim attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania in Indiana, PA (Arvilla Harrold was his piano teacher) for his Bachelor’s degree. During his junior year, Jim won the Music Department's Concerto Competition, playing MacDowell's Concerto No. 2 in D Minor. In 1970 Jim began his Master’s Degree in Piano at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music under Madame Olga Conus.  Jim had the honor of playing for Van Cliburn in a Master Class. He was a personal assistant for Mme. Conus in her last years. He drove her to school in the morning so that she could practice the Conus finger exercises before she began her teaching day. During this time period, Jim was honored to have Madame Conus and a friend drive all the way from Cincinnati to McKeesport, PA, to hear Jim give a piano recital in his home town. By 1975 Jim had completed his doctorate (Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano). His doctoral dissertation was entitled Godowsky Studies on the Chopin Etudes. [Jim paid Susan to type the entire dissertation from his hand written notes on her little electric typewriter (no word processing) and help him edit it].

Susan was born into a musical family, also.  Her grandmother, Susan Marie, was a ragtime pianist who supported the family by playing in bars at one point in their life.  She also played the background music for silent movies at the local theater in Dubuque, Iowa.  She suffered a fatal stroke at the piano while playing “Roll Out the Barrel”.  She died in March 1950, five months before Susan was born, and Susan was christened Susan Marie after her grandmother.  Susan’s uncle was John Graas, who is known as a pioneer in the development of jazz on the French horn, an excellent horn player (Cleveland Symphony, Stan Kenton, etc.) and an innovative composer who wrote the first Jazz Symphony.  When he died at the age of 45, he was found with his arms wrapped around his French horn—he died of a heart attack while practicing. Discography for John Graas:  website  and Link to John Graas Biography written by Susan JohnGraas.bio  Susan wanted piano lessons from an early age, but because of family circumstances, she did not get to begin formal lessons until age 9 at St. Dominic’s School in Brookfield, taught by a nun during the school day. She had to practice at lunchtime in the school cafeteria and at home on a cardboard keyboard for a year before she would be given her own piano.  Because of this early training, Susan developed the ability to practice piano in her head by simply looking at a score (up to a certain level only). Susan had several teachers before moving to California from Wisconsin the summer before her senior year in High School (by that time her third high school).  When she arrived in Anaheim, she auditioned with someone at Cal State Fullerton, who said she was too advanced for their prep department and recommended that she go to lessons in Pasadena, CA, with one of the best private teachers in CA at the time (We'll just call him Mr. "V").  So Susan’s father drove her the 1.5 hours to her lesson every other Saturday.  After a couple of months of lessons, Mr. "V" told Susan her hands were too small for the piano, that she wasn’t talented like his other pupils, and that he wouldn’t even bother to come to Susan’s piano performance in the Anaheim Junior Miss Pageant because it was going to be so terrible.  That was the last straw for Susan and she was out of Mr. “V’s” studio in a flash.   Susan studied on her own for the second part of her Senior year in High School.  She had been encouraged to attend the University or Redlands by a wise counselor at her high school (Loara High – Susan graduated with straight As and was Co-Valedictorian for the Graduation Ceremony in Anaheim Stadium), She received a full scholarship to the University of Redlands website.  Her parents wanted her living at home, attending Cal State Fullerton, but the experience at Redlands turned out to be one of the best decisions Susan every made because she was assigned to Dr. Alexandra Pierce website for piano lessons.  Dr. Pierce is an extraordinarily gifted teacher, pianist, music theorist, Professor of Music and Movement and prolific composer, who instilled a love of piano and music theory in Susan.  Their relationship continues until this day.  Dr. Pierce’s husband, another wonderful person, Dr. Roger Pierce (PhD in Drama), website, is a trained Rolf Practitioner who "rolfed" Susan in 1972. (from definition: Rolfing, also known as Structural Integration, is considered deep-tissue bodywork and movement education. It is used to increase a person's range of motion, enhance lightness and freedom in the body, elevate energy, and reduce pain. Roger has been a Professor of Drama at Stanford University and UC-Riverside, and currently conducts Movement Workshops, private movement sessions, and is author of the novel Your Valvèd Voice (2008).

Susan began teaching piano on the faculty of the University of Redlands during her Junior year. She received a BA in Music with Theory Emphasis (summa cum laude).  Her Honors Dissertation (under Dr. Pierce’s supervision):  Transformation: A Study of the Term and its Analytic Usefulness in the String Quartets of Haydn, Op. 76 and 77 (200 pages).  She decided to additionally get the Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance.  That year she won the Redlands Bowl Young Artist contest and got to perform with winners on other instruments one beautiful summer evening in their outdoor amphitheater.

Susan began her Master’s in Piano at USC (under Daniel Pollack website), but was having trouble making enough money to pay for her living expenses (and did not want to have any more student loans), so she applied to the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and received a teaching assistantship in Music Theory which paid for everything and included a stipend for room & board.  She was given the job of teaching Freshman Theory to the freshman class of Music Theater majors. She decided to make it practical and taught them how to analyze their Broadway songs (not a simple task because they were all a bunch of hams!!!). But class became a performance lab where Susan enjoyed accompanying all of them.  Several in the class met fame on Broadway such as Faith Prince website, Kurt Johns website, Kim Criswell website, Joel Imbody, among others.  CCM has arguably the best Music Theater department in the nation.

In June of 1974, right after arriving in Cincinnati, Susan met Jim McKeever in Paul Cooper’s Pedagogy of Theory class Paul Cooper website.  Jim says “it was love at first sight”.  Susan took a while to warm up to Jim, though, but eventually she came to her senses, and they were married on January 29, 1977.  Susan & Jim began playing piano duets together in 1975.  Susan enjoyed her 1.5 years of piano instruction with Madame Conus at CCM website, but Madame died before Susan’s Master’s Degree was finished and she finished her Master’s Degree with Professor Richard Morris.
Jim’s first college position was on the Music Faculty at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky. Private teaching in Kentucky became very discouraging for Susan in 1980 (for example, she had a student who wanted to take piano to improve her golf grip, others who were there only to learn their beauty pageant selection, etc., etc.-- two notable exceptions were her student Kellie Overbey (actress & playwright) website) and Dr. Brenda Hayden Sheets, who is a Professor in the Business department of Murray State. Because of this, Susan took 3 full semesters (15 to 18 credits each semester) in Computer Science and Business courses at Murray State University. When Jim and Susan moved to Racine WI so Jim could begin his job as Assistant Professor of Music at UW-Parkside website in 1982, Susan worked in the computer field in Racine WI (Case & Twin Disc) as a computer programmer in assembly machine language (the lowest level programming language and also the most difficult to program the business applications).  In 1985, she missed music so much that she quit the computer job in the business world and started a private piano studio in Kenosha, returned to performing with Jim as the McKeever Duo McKeever Duo Audio Samples, began playing with students and faculty at UW-Parkside, and began teaching at UW-Parkside.

A large part of Jim and Susan's life has been serving God through music. Between the two of them, they have served at over 10 different churches since 1970 in several states. Currently Jim is organist at Plymouth Congregational Church in Racine WI website and Susan is Co-Liturgical Music Director and pianist at St. Lucy Catholic Church in Racine WI website. They have also been responsible for finding and placing a fortepiano, clavichord, refurbished and new organs, many fine and unusual pianos (such as August Forster, Schimmel, etc.) at churches in Racine & Kenosha, WI and at UW-Parkside.