Lori Cologne’s family moved to New York when she was five years old. One day, her mother got a piano at a yard sale and brought it home. Cologne took to it right away and when she heard a song on the radio and was able to play it back perfectly by ear. Her grandmother bought her a Wurlitzer studio piano, which still sits in Cologne’s home today. She had a few lessons, but she preferred to teach herself, which is exactly what she did.
Then came a miracle moment. At age six, Cologne went to the piano at a VIP luncheon in New York and began to play. People were afraid she was going to bang away but instead she brought the house down. A gentleman in the group approached her and offered to give her lessons. That was Leonard Bernstein, the music director of West Side Story.
For the next nine years Bernstein was her music teacher and mentor to what was to become an illustrious career. She became an integral part of his professional work with the New York Philharmonic and stayed within this very unique environment for the remainder of Bernstein’s life.
