Brinton Family Pianists<\/a> will be at the famed concert hall on March 23, and their matriarch has been busy prepping her grandchildren for the musical milestone.<\/p>\nSally Brinton, bottom center, will be playing at Carnegie Hall with three of her children and 12 of her grandchildren. Courtesy of the Brinton Family<\/p>\n
\u201cI tell them they\u2019re playing in the most famous concert hall in the world,\u201d Sally Brinton told The Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey literally are counting the days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brinton, 74, a graduate of Juilliard, will play with her three kids, Stephanie Brinton Parker, Lindsey Brinton Harris and Jonathan Brinton, and 12 of her grandkids, who range in age from 7 to 17.<\/p>\n
They play classical music from composers like Tchaikovsky and Beethoven, performing in pairs at different times on stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had one person ask how all 16 of us performed at one time \u2026 we do not, the most that we will ever have on stage performing is two,\u201d Brinton explained.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s so many of them, they can\u2019t even stay in one NYC hotel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re actually staying in two different hotels. And they [hotel employees] already know our family\u2019s coming,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a concert of gratitude,\u201d Brinton told The Post of the crew\u2019s Carnegie Hall gig. \u201cWe\u2019re grateful for our family, grateful for our country, grateful for our heritage, and grateful for God and our Savior, Jesus Christ.\u201d Courtesy of the Brinton Family<\/p>\n
The idea for the three-generational show first came in 2023, when Brinton was on tour with her daughters in Germany and they decided to bring the little ones on stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey brought the house down \u2026 The people just could not believe that they could play at that level,\u201d said Brinton, who in all has seven kids and 38 grandchildren.<\/p>\n
They have since performed everywhere from Oakland, Calif. to Honolulu, Hawaii, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd they just love performing with their cousins \u2026 Family is what it\u2019s all about in the Brinton family.\u201d<\/p>\n
A native of Utah, Brinton began playing the piano on the Baldwin baby grand her mother \u2014 a self-taught church organist who grew up on a farm \u2014 learned on. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe would sell milk for 5 cents a quart as part of her chores. And they used that money \u2026 to buy a piano for the family,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
When it came time to earn her master\u2019s, Brinton moved to Manhattan to attend Juilliard, and rented a 2-bedroom apartment at 170 West End Avenue with three other women. \u201cI remember I paid $110 a month for rent,\u201d she said. Courtesy of the Brinton Family<\/p>\n
Sally Peterson Brinton 1972. Courtesy of the Brinton Family<\/p>\n
When she was 7, her mom noticed her fascination with tickling the ivories, and started giving her lessons. When the mom saw how quickly Brinton progressed, she enrolled her daughter in formal lessons.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe told me, \u2018Sally, you come home from school, get a snack and practice for a half hour every day, and after that, you can go outside and play,’\u201d recalled Brinton, who was invited to play with the Utah Symphony at age 11.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big picture window where our piano was looked out on where my friends were playing, and I had a few tears to begin with. But what I didn\u2019t realize is that my mother was teaching me discipline and consistency. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think those are the two traits that you need to put into a child\u2019s heart and mind if they are going to succeed with music.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Brinton had her own family, she also required her children \u2014 five of whom are Harvard grads \u2014 to practice 30 minutes each day.<\/p>\n
All of them can play the piano, although some chose a different instrument to pursue. <\/p>\n
\u201cJonathan, the oldest, plays the cello. Jason plays trumpet, Eric plays clarinet, Jessica is harp. And then there\u2019s Stephanie and Lindsey, who both ended up big time with the piano,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of them push back. None of them say, \u2018Oh, I don\u2019t want to do this,’\u201d Brinton said of her talented grandchildren. Courtesy of the Brinton Family<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then our youngest one, Sam, chose cello, and we had all the cellos left over from the oldest son, so it just worked out great.\u201d <\/p>\n
Brinton now relishes in watching her grandchildren \u2014 two of whom fly to New York from St. Louis every weekend to study at the Manhattan School of Music \u2014 enjoy piano as much as she does.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means everything for me to watch one of my little grandchildren go out, bow, get up on the bench, can\u2019t even touch the floor. And then just give it everything they\u2019ve got,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The family is eventually looking forward to four generations on stage. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re expecting our first great-grandchild a week after our concert,\u201d Brinton said with a smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think it just really depends on me. I\u2019m the one that would age out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They are hitting all the right notes. Sixteen members of one extraordinarily talented family will be playing in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[30056,2947,221,68,6105,15476,64724,64725,75,57,36099,15241,9,11,10,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-156659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-carnegie-hall","9":"tag-classical-music","10":"tag-concert","11":"tag-exclusive","12":"tag-families","13":"tag-grandparents","14":"tag-juilliard","15":"tag-juilliard-school","16":"tag-manhattan","17":"tag-metro","18":"tag-motherhood","19":"tag-musicians","20":"tag-new-york","21":"tag-new-york-headlines","22":"tag-new-york-news","23":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}