oldest and youngest piano students perform duet

Nine piano students of Stacy Jager of Lockport presented an intergenerational piano recital on Sunday, June 4, 2023, in the Ballroom of The Timbers of Shorewood Senior Living, 1100 N River Rd, Shorewood. The audience was composed of fellow residents, families, and friends.

“The nine students ranged from age six to 79,” Jager said. “A fun duet featured the oldest and the youngest student performing an original piece I wrote entitled, ‘Young at Heart.’ I wrote it in honor of the intergenerational theme of the piano recital.”

The duet featured six-year-old Hank and 79-year-old Paula Polechla, a Timbers resident since July 2022.

“The recital was very nice and a lot of fun,” Polechla said. “Originally my grandmother taught me to play piano when I was around ten years old. After so many years, I was very happy to take it up again with Stacy when I moved to the Timbers.”

Teacher Stacy Jager graduated from Alverno College in Milwaukee with a Music Therapy degree specializing in piano.

“I taught at many other locations since then and now teach out of my home,” she said. “I go to the Timbers to teach the seniors. I find both age groups very motivated. My younger students have more agile fingers, and my oldest students have past experiences and can pick up learning more quickly.”

There were several other songs in the recital such as “America the Beautiful,” “Home on the Range,” “Morning has Broken,” and “The Marines’ Hymn.”

“Stacy and I have been planning the recital for a while,” said Amy Odell, director of activities at The Timbers of Shorewood. “It was great to see it all come together and to see all the smiles in the room. To have Paula Polechla, 79, and Hank, 6, play a fun duet was the perfect piece to end the recital. It was very moving.”

For young or old, learning piano reaps benefits

There are many benefits to taking piano lessons. It improves mental and emotional health and achieves a deeper understanding of music. Lessons help improve mental and emotional wellbeing. Playing piano increases the production of endorphins, and learning piano can help relieve stress and improve concentration. This can be especially important for children, who can benefit from the calming effects that playing the piano can provide.

In addition, piano lessons can be incredibly beneficial for hand-eye coordination. As a student progresses through lessons, they notice a marked improvement in the ability to play with both hands. Studying piano has also been shown to amazingly improve memory — particularly verbal memory — and build good habits like focus and perseverance, diligence, and creativity.

Piano students can benefit from the healing powers of the vibrations and sounds of the notes which can help them get through difficult times and to find strength in times of trouble. It can be an escape from stress and help resolve tension.

“Music brings people together,”

Stacy Jager said. “It is universal. Music speaks what words cannot fully express. Teaching is what I love to do, and piano is part of my soul. Teaching and playing piano are such joys for me. Sharing those joys is amazing.” like their heavily regulated counterparts, video gaming terminals. Just like VGTs, sweepstakes machines dispense a receipt to hand over to the establishment that houses the machine for players to cash out.

The Timbers of Shorewood Senior Living is a rental retirement community that provides independent living and assisted living apartments and a full schedule of activities and services. Residents whose needs may change are able to stay in the same place and receive appropriate and compassionate care. Furnished apartments are also available for short-term stays.

“The only difference” between regulated VGTs and sweepstakes machines, Scanio said, is that sweepstakes machines also dispense coupons for merchandise that can be purchased online – and offer the option to play for free.

However, he testified, the free play is not easy to obtain; in order to play the slot machine-like games for free on a sweepstakes machine, a customer has to get a special code from the machine, mail it to the company that operates it and then wait about a month in order to get $1 worth of credits to play on that same machine.

While the Illinois Gaming Board has long considered sweepstakes machines illegal, the agency has gotten involved in the seizure of machines only twice. The incidents both wound up in court, and on appeal, judges declined to directly rule on the legality of the machines.

The jury this week heard audio from two separate committee hearings from May 2019, when Arroyo went out of his way to get a direct answer from witnesses about sweepstakes machines’ legal standing.

“Somebody here is lying,” Arroyo said during one of the hearings, in the middle of testimony from Bill Bogot, a former attorney for the Illinois Gaming Board. “Why are you up here saying it’s illegal? Either you’re lying or the gentleman in the back (of the) room is lying.”

Arroyo was referring to a proponent of sweepstakes machines, who had testified earlier in the hearing in favor of legalizing them. Bogot had been explaining why state regulators considered sweepstakes machines illegal.

Rita witnessed the exchange from his position as chair of the House Executive Committee, and in court this week told the jury that it’s unusual for a representative to be so hostile to a witness tapped to give their expert opinion on a matter.

Rita said he was notified not long after that hearing that the latest amendment to the proposed gambling expansion bill included language legalizing sweepstakes machines – something he said he did not authorize. It was not included in the final bill.

“Do you think that someone was trying to sneak something into the legislation without you knowing about it?” the government attorney asked Rita.

That prompted an immediate objection from Weiss’ attorney, which was quickly overruled.

“It appears that way, yes,” Rita said.

The trial continues at 9:30 a.m. on Monday.