Bankruptcy lawyer tickles the ivories

Dallas lawyer Gerrit Pronske has played piano since age 8 and toyed with a career in piano performance before settling on the law. He regularly practices 15 hours a week or more but says he never performed on the big stage –- until June 15, when he played with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. Pronske was one of six amateur pianists who won the opportunity to perform with the symphony in a competition organized by PianoTexas International Academy & Festival in collaboration with the Fort Worth Symphony and the Van Cliburn Foundation. Pronske, a bankruptcy attorney, says he’s calm and collected in the courtroom but was “absolutely scared to death” to play with the symphony. He played Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Minor, K. 466, a piece he’s known for years, because it was a favorite of his piano-playing mother. Video of Pronske’s performance is on YouTube.  Pronske says he dropped out of law school at Texas Tech University to work on a master's in piano performance at the university but then went back to law school and graduated in 1983 after he realized that making a living in music would be difficult. Pronske, a shareholder in Pronske & Patel, says he “wasn’t embarrassed” by his performance with the Fort Worth Symphony, but he says his nervousness is apparent by the number of times he wiped his brow during his time at the piano.
-- Brenda Sapino Jeffreys