Piano Lessons

Benjamin Whitten, 80, a pianist and teacher who left an indelible impression on thousands of students, died of pulmonary arrest Sunday, June 13, at his Philadelphia home.

“The world of music has certainly lost one of its greatest artists, teachers, and performers,” said Timothy Blair, dean of the School of Music at West Chester University, where Mr. Whitten taught for more than three decades.

Part teacher, life coach, and raconteur – always a Southern gentleman with a glistening wit – Mr. Whitten was known for emphasizing musicality, even if it came at the expense of precision.

“If you want perfection, get a machine,” he once told a student who was upset about flubbing some notes.

Many students became performers and teachers. Others were simply lifelong friends.

One star pupil was Peter Orth, who now lives in Germany and performs worldwide.

Orth began studying with Mr. Whitten in 1968, when he was 14. A sheltered youth, he thought the lively Whitten household in West Chester was like something from a Tennessee Williams play.

“Ben offered me an escape,” Orth said. “He opened up the world of an aesthetic sensibility that I was thirsting for. He was very difficult and complicated. But I loved him so much.”

Raised in Mississippi and Memphis, Mr. Whitten began studying piano at a young age with a neighborhood teacher, later regaling students with tales of playing hymns but substituting irreverent lyrics.

Mr. Whitten received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he studied with Austin Conradi and Leon Fleisher.

There, he met another pianist, Jane Peebles from Norfolk, Va. They married in 1955.

A year earlier, Mr. Whitten had entered the Army and was a military police officer in Panama. He often performed on the lone piano that had not succumbed to the humidity.

In 1956, Mr. Whitten returned to Baltimore and the Peabody Preparatory for children, where he had been teaching.

Three years later, he went to West Chester State Teachers College, now West Chester University.

He performed local recitals and faculty concerts – where seats often had to be added onstage – and in Europe, South America, and Canada.

Mr. Whitten gravitated to the Romantic composers, especially Chopin and Brahms.

In the early ’70s, he performed at Carnegie Hall. A New York Times review said, “His vitality comes from understanding the music at hand and knowing how to make it come to life.”

Mr. Whitten never recorded in a studio, but tapes were made of faculty recitals. Several years ago, his family unearthed some and made CDs.

“They were just stunning,” Blair said. “When you listened to Ben’s playing, it wasn’t strictly being awed by technical prowess. You were awed by the depth of the musicianship.”

Mr. Whitten brought that same musicality to his students.

When Richard Gangwisch of West Chester began studying with Mr. Whitten, another musician remarked that “up until then, I was a good student. After, I was a pianist.”

Mr. Whitten would quiz students about their lives and never forget a detail.

“Ben never taught piano a day in his life,” Blair said. “He taught people. He was a humanist who really felt that in order for someone to grow musically, he had to understand what made them tick.”

Mr. Whitten was also a master at acerbic – often hilarious – critiques. In a 2001 anthology of remembrances honoring his 50th year of teaching, one student recalled this one: “You played that like you were whining for someone to cut your meat.”

They revered Mr. Whitten for his unabashed love of gossip, his empathy, his unpredictability, his creative occasional profanity.

He retired from West Chester in 1991, but continued to give lessons. Mr. Whitten taught at many other schools, including the University of the Arts, Elizabethtown College, and the Wilmington Music School.

In the late 1970s, he began a summer music school at Eagles Mere in the Poconos, putting pianos in an old house and barn and taking students there for intense study.

In later summers, he took students to the Loire Valley Music Institute in France, founded by former student Fred Crumrine, now a church musician in Media.

Part of the idea was cultural engagement. Even though Mr. Whitten didn’t speak the language fluently, “he managed to impress the locals with his faux French and his wonderful demeanor and personality,” Crumrine recalled.

The recipient of numerous awards, Mr. Whitten was named teacher of the year several times by the Music Teachers National Association’s Pennsylvania and Delaware chapters.

After living in West Chester and Chadds Ford, the Whittens moved about a decade ago to an apartment in Philadelphia, where two Steinways dominated the living room.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Whitten is survived by his sons, Nathaniel and Benjamin; a daughter, Victoria; and two grandchildren.

The family plans to hold a celebration of his life later.

Memorial donations may be made to the Benjamin Whitten Endowment of the Music Teachers National Association, 441 Vine St., Suite 3100, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.

Contact staff writer Sandy Bauers at 215-854-5147 or sbauers@phillynews.com.

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