I grew up in Greensburg, Indiana and started taking piano lessons when I was six years of age. My older brother had already been taking piano lessons and by the age of three I found myself listening to him play and then playing the melodies that he would be practicing in his lessons, by ear.

 

My mother decided to start me with piano lessons so I could learn how to read music. At the end of each lesson, I would have my piano teacher play my pieces for the following week. I would learn them by “ear”, faking my way through until one day she didn’t have time to play the songs and I couldn’t play them the following week. She caught on that I was playing by ear and made me learn how to read music. 

 

Throughout my school years I played in band where I played saxophone and then later the choir where I sang from middle school until my senior year in High-school.  After graduation I joined a local rock-band touring the Midwest. I had the chance to play with the Byrds, Richie Havens, Peter Yarrows (from Peter, Paul, and Mary), the Allman Brothers, and Jazz Legend - saxophonist Joe Henderson. I heard about a school of Music in Boston called Berklee and decided to enroll in 1973. I graduated there in 1978 and have since settled and played in the Boston area.                

 

Musical engagements have included the piano bar at the “57” Restaurant for 13 years, Club Cafe, The Oak Room at the “Copley Hotel and the Encore Lounge, all in the Boston Theatre District.

                                                                                                

Since 1991, I have been teaching at “Berklee College Of Music” where I just recently received my 25 year award. In 2003, the “Steve Heck Room” was created through a generous donation by art-music philanthropist, Stan Hatoff. This room is being used for meetings, lectures, receptions, and performances.

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In closing, I never plan to retire but to just to keep making music and making people happy!! To put a smile on a persons’ face is worth it.    

 

Steve Heck