Finn Jessen knows his piano-playing gift benefits both him and his audiences
There’s something about music at Christmas.
Hearing a familiar melody can be all it takes to evoke Christmases past with loved ones. No matter how stressed we are, or what bad news the headlines have to impart, just a few notes can transport you to that place of warmth and happiness that is vital to continuing the Christmas spirit.
Finn Jessen knows all about that. The youthful 82-year-old South Surrey resident knows all about the power of music through his volunteer work – until recently he played piano regularly in seniors’ residences throughout the Semiahmoo Peninsula and beyond and even at Tapestry Music’s Vancouver store.
His straight-ahead, rolling bass style is ideally suited to bringing out the inherent brilliance of pieces by giants of the classic era of popular song-writing of the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, such as Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart and Irving Berlin.
Now concentrating on his appearances on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month at Sunnyside Manor, he knows that a measure or two of a favourite carol, like the 1818 Silent Night (Stille Nacht) or Berlin’s White Christmas (from 1942), is the necessary ingredient to make the season bright again.
“Or I’ll Be Home For Christmas – that’s my favourite,” he says. “I find it so heart-warming.”
One of the reasons he likes Christmas music, he says, is that songs of the season can be unabashedly sentimental, in a way he feels a lot of everyday current popular music misses.
“I wonder if we’ll ever get back to sentimental music again,” he ponders.
Going down his Christmas playlist, he points out other numbers that always connect with listeners of all ages – We Wish You A Merry Christmas, Blue Christmas, O Christmas Tree (O Tannembaum), Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow, or A Holly, Jolly Christmas.
“Or how about ‘chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose…’ ” he remembers, his voice slipping easily into the tenor range that once made him an in-demand member of the Lutheran Church choir in his former hometown of Richmond.
He sticks strictly to the keyboard these days – primarily the baby grand at Sunnyside Manor – claiming that he has never felt comfortable singing and accompanying himself on the piano.
But he’s always been musical, he says, going back to his childhood in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he was born in 1941, during the dark days of the Second World War in a small family in which his only sibling was his older sister.
“I played quite a few instruments when I was young, including the guitar and the (harmonica), which I was quite good at – I played a chromatic instrument, which you can’t even find these days. You’d have to bring one in from Germany, and it would probably cost something like $600.”
But his favourite instrument always evaded him, he recalls.
“I always wanted a piano, but my father didn’t want one in the house, so that was that.
My stepmother was quite into music, though, and that’s the way I grew up, listening to all the good old songs. And I still listen to all the old music today – those songs will never change, they’ll always be the same.”
Right after high school, Jessen was called up for national service in the Danish military, after which he volunteered to be a U.N. peacekeeper.
When he left the military, Jessen was determined to emigrate to Canada.
“I didn’t see so many opportunities in Denmark,” he says. “And I wanted to own and operate my own business.”
His first community was Toronto, but when he met his first wife and discovered that a lot of her family was in Vancouver, a move to the West Coast seemed opportune.
He realized his dream of business ownership, establishing his own successful glass installation and repair company, which he kept going until he retired.
He also got back into music through the church choir and gifted with an accordion, took lessons and worked hard to make his efforts sound palatable.
“I never really liked the accordion,” Jesen admits, now. “It’s not a very attractive instrument unless you were a player like (jazz accordionist) Art Van Damme or (Lawrence Welk mainstay) Myron Floren.”
But in 1977, when he and his family moved into their own home in Richmond, he was finally able to buy a piano.
Ironically, at first it got more use from his daughter, Stephanie.
It was only after he was divorced, and later remarried, some 16 years ago, that he was able to take the piano up again seriously.
“It was a bit of a challenge switching from accordion to piano, because, while they both have keyboards, one is up and down, while the other is across.”
He and his wife Bonnie moved to South Surrey a decade ago, where they live fairly quietly, outside of his forays to share his piano playing with others.
“I wanted to give back to the community and this seemed to be one way that could use my skills,” he says, noting that he has been steadfastly a volunteer.
“I’ve never wanted to take money for this,” he adds.
At one point he found himself a little too busy, he says.
“I was running around to various centres three times a week. It improved my playing – I got a lot better – but it was too much.”
Jessen says he enjoys playing at Sunnyside Manor because the piano is in the corner of a larger activities space.
“Some places I’ve played, you have your back to the people, which I don’t like. Eye contact is very important, you read everything in the eyes.
“Music is emotional, you should express yourself in your music,” he says.
And Sunnyside Manor general manager Michelle Fraser and community co-ordinator Olga Platon say the contribution of Finn and other volunteers to the ambience of the seniors residence is valued not only by residents but also by staff, particularly at this time of year.
“They bring a sense of the outside community to our seniors,” Platon says.
“Having Finn here spending his spare time and sharing his talents is heart-warming for all the residents. Music is very beneficial for the seniors, and brings back a lot of memories for them.”
For Finn, it’s also beneficial, he says.
Like the hour of walking he does every day, he feels playing music keeps him young and engaged.
“It definitely does something,” he says. “Like they say – ‘keep a song in your heart’.”