I began playing piano the summer I turned 6...No one can remember what month!  I took lessons from my Aunt Caroline who was the most revered piano instructor in the Chicago area.  I continued lessons until my senior year of High School.  After High School, I joined the Navy which made my playing and theory suffer because I was out to sea 10 months out of the year on average, with no piano!  After 4 years at sea, I took shore duty orders and went back to studying piano 2-3 hours a day to make up for lost time!  I began playing a lot of "New Age" artists like Yanni, Jim Brickman, Enya, John Tesh and so on, but classical music is my passion so I spend most of my time these days trying to master concertos and such.