Oral History: How a Piano Helped a Child

The Record's intern, Chelsea Burton, spent the summer gathering audio stories of Hinesburg residents and made one of her own.

Editor’s note: This story is by Chelsea Burton, a 2025 graduate of UVM who was The Record’s intern through UVM’s Center for Community News which also provided a grant to pay for Chelsea to help gather Oral Histories in the summer of 2025. This story was created in a workshop with Geoffrey Gevalt at the beginning of the Oral Histories project.

This is Sofia, the 11-year-old I took care of during the summer of 2023. Sofia played the piano, as did I; her parents chose me as her au pair, I think, because of this. Her piano was a white upright one standing in the high-ceilinged living room. She seldom wanted to practice.

Lessons were at 10:30 every Wednesday morning, and every time, we were late. She would lose her house keys, or insist on bringing her bike, or want to change her outfit, or refuse to leave unless I brought a bike of my own. We were a full ten minutes late to the first lesson.

Sofia carried her bike into the music studio, and I followed her inside. The main room was cluttered with instruments and sheet music, scattered across the floor. Rays of sunlight came in through the windows, striping them yellow.

Norma, a big Italian woman, stood amongst the pages. She was Sofia’s teacher. Norma spoke no English, and my Duolingo knowledge proved useless. What we agreed on was the old wooden piano in the corner. Sofia grabbed my hand and dragged me to it, requesting Fur Elise.

Norma and Sofia clapped when I was done. I smiled and stood from the bench, my legs clinging to it from the heat. Norma brought me through an old classroom into the back office, where another piano sat below a tarp. I waited there, looking around while she spent 10 minutes fighting with a printer. She came back with six pieces of music – quite a lot for the hour, I thought.

“Debussy?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure what she was asking, but I nodded anyway.

I had athletic shoes on and headphones in my pocket, having prepared for a walk around town. Yet, Gelato, the palace, the street market – all these European legends I had heard of, were to wait another day.

Norma set up the music of Clair de Lune in front of me. I played those first three famous chords, my fingers dusting the old black Yamaha. I heard Sofia running through her own music two rooms over. Like dueling pianists, we both played.

As the summer progressed, Sofia was more willing to sit down at the piano and practice. We walked, biked, or scootered to her lessons, shooting for that 10:30 start time. But, like any good musician, we were inclined to play with time like it was our own invention.