Note: I’ve driven by Maureen Girard’s 88Keys Piano Studio hundreds of times on my way to and from our Langley Village by the Sea. I was often curious about the mailbox covered in a piano keys motif. So, I was thrilled when Maureen contacted me about doing a story about her exciting story revealed in her book “Arctic Sonata: the Courage to Rise,” published June 12, 2025. All photos are shared by Maureen Girard.
It is her affinity for the piano, combined with her determination to become a professional performer, that has seen Langley pianist and music teacher Maureen Girard through some very tough times.
She wrote a book, published June 12th of this year, “Arctic Sonata: the Courage to Rise” that details her show biz family life from Yonkers NY during the 1960s to moving to Las Vegas, getting married at 19, moving to Oregon, finding out she wasn’t legally married, leaving the man, living in Eugene OR and working as a waitress, and becoming a professional musician and music teacher.
Along the way of her young life, she dreamed of becoming a professional pianist. But she had to persevere in her dream after her family piano was smashed to bits when she was a young teen and she did not play for more than a decade.
While living in Yonkers, Maureen found inspiration from her Uncle Eddie Lynch, who had been a vaudeville performer discovered by Al Jolson, one of America’s most famous highly paid stars of the 1920s. Uncle Eddie had later worked for a then famous showman.
“Eddie worked backstage at the Ed Sullivan theater and my dad worked across the street at a Cadillac car dealership,” said Maureen. “Eddie sent him a steady stream of celebrities, and my mother was a model. We were immersed in this show business environment.”
As far back as she can remember, Maureen enjoyed playing piano and singing. She began taking piano lessons at the age of six.
“It was my piano,” recalled Maureen. “The first time I saw it, I knew music was my calling. I asked my mom at a very young age if the piano could be mine. This was before I was six. My foundation was show business, art and music. I had a whole show I put on. I sang, I danced. My mom shoved me in the living room at their cocktail parties. She said, ‘Go sing “Calcutta,” honey.’”
“Calcutta” was a 60s pop tune made famous by the Lawrence Welk orchestra.
But by the time she was 13, Uncle Eddie had moved to Las Vegas, where he worked as a backstage manager at Caesar’s Palace. Maureen’s dad was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer—but due to what was in vogue at the time with physicians and their patients, the patient was not informed of the bad news, the patient’s spouse was.
Maureen’s mother announced the family would move to Las Vegas because she knew Uncle Eddie would take care of the family. When the Yonkers home was sold, the buyers told Maureen’s mom they didn’t want the piano. Maureen’s distraught mother—from the news of her husband’s illness and the impending move from the place she loved—instructed her son and his friends to destroy the piano. They took a sledge hammer to the piano, smashing it to bits.
“I’ll never forget the day that changed my life forever,” wrote Maureen in her memoir. “My upright piano, with its ivory keys and wood polished to a shine, had been my whole world. After school, I’d toss my book bag aside and rush down to play. But that day as I descended the basement stairs, I stopped short, frozen in shock. All that remained was the gold plate that held the strings. My world shattered alongside the piano.”
Maureen recalled the symbolism of that gold plate. “That plate represents my life,” she said. “A beautiful gold plate became a symbol of myself. Even though everything was destroyed. I was still standing.”
While Maureen’s dad lived another 10 years, she notes he was never the same afterwards. He never worked again. After he died, Maureen kept a pair of his jumper cables which came in handy when her car battery needed a recharge. “They’ve been a comfort—a reminder that he’s still with me, riding along,” she writes in her book.
Meanwhile, Uncle Eddie brought his niece Maureen backstage at Caesar’s Palace. Meeting top drawer entertainers renewed her determination that she, too, would perform someday.
“I spent countless hours with him backstage as a teenager, where I met and heard some of the most iconic entertainers of all time such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, The Jackson Five, Ike and Tina Turner, Liberace and countless others,” notes Maureen in her website’s biography. “It was an incredible experience that influenced and shaped my life and my career.”
It was a series of synchronous events that found Maureen returning to performing in her 20s. She landed a job as a cocktail waitress at a hip jazz club in Portland OR, the Prima Donna. She became friends with musicians. She saved her money and bought a Decker Brothers upright grand piano with a black satin finish. She took lessons. She moved seven times since living in Las Vegas. Her Decker Brothers upright weighing in at 700 pounds, moved three times.
She also bought a Rhodes piano and played it at the Mazzi Italian restaurant in Salem OR where she had formerly waitressed. Though she was fired from waitressing for not being “Mazzi Material,” by a mean-spirited supervisor, Maureen approached the restaurant owner and asked if she could play for the patrons and was given a job, which marked the end of waitressing and the start of her musical career.
You may wonder why her memoir’s title is titled “Arctic Sonata.” Well, as detailed in the book’s exciting chapters, Maureen wrote about the time she won an audition to entertain guests aboard MS World Discoverer, which was embarked on an expedition in the Arctic to explore the Northwest Passage. The Northwest Passage saw the demise of Captain Sir John Franklin and his crew by the late 1840s in their fatal journey to discover a western shortcut from Europe to Asia.
The book’s cover reflects a painting from the National Maritime Museum, and is part of the public domain. The artist John Wilson Carmichael painted the scene in 1847 with Franklin’s HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, and men in lifeboats. However, the artist did not know all aboard had died.
Like Franklin’s voyage, the MS World Discoverer became trapped in ice for several days. Unlike Franklin’s ill-fated trip, the Discoverer was rescued. All the while, Maureen played in the ship’s lounge.
“When we got trapped in the ice, it was the music that calmed us all down,” recalled Maureen. “Rather than being afraid and panicked, I played. That’s the power of music. It took our minds off it. We saw the Northern Lights.”
The year was 1987 and Maureen was 28. By that time she realized that music was as important to her as breathing.
“Music for me is transformative,” said Maureen. “I’m not aware of regular time. You enter into this realm. That speaks to the power of music.”
Meanwhile, Maureen attended Willamette University in Salem OR, and an arts college in Seattle where she completed coursework in both classical and jazz piano. She’s performed in night clubs, and in concert, and worked for more than a decade before beginning her teaching career on Whidbey Island. She has taught more than 1,200 students.
“One of my students graduated from Juilliard, one won first place the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival for solo piano, and many have gone on to win scholarships and awards,” notes Maureen on her website. “It is a very rewarding and fun career that I truly love. I was born to play the piano!…and to teach and to share the joy of the Art of the Piano!”
Additionally she served as president of the local chapter of the WA State Music Teacher’s Association, the South Whidbey Association of Jazz Educators, and was given her own show in 2021 at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts called the 88Keys Piano Club, named after her studio.
A friend, David Lanz, wrote the forward for “Arctic Sonata.”
“I met Maureen in her lovely Whidbey Island piano studio…after she had contacted me to give a piano workshop for her students. It would be the first of several very successful events. Her love of music and her musicianship was embedded into the hearts and hands of her students. Her story is a reflection of life challenges met with an artistic soul.”
David Lanz according to the biography on his webpage, is a “Grammy nominated, platinum selling pianist, composer and producer, and is one of the most popular artists in the new age instrumental and adult alternative genres.”
He’s recorded more than 40 albums, written numerous songbooks. He is an international performer, a “pioneer in the genre of New Age music.” “Heavy mellow” is how the artist describes his music.
“He’s my dear friend. I’ve known him for over 20 years,” said Maureen.
“Arctic Sonata: The Courage to Rise” is available at Langley’s Moonraker Books, as well as Amazon, other national booksellers, and Maureen’s website. A meet and greet with the author is planned for Sept. 23 at the Langley Library.
In publishing the book, Maureen said she intends to give others hope. Author Elizabeth George once read an earlier treatment of the book by author Bob Condor and told her to write her story. “When Elizabeth George tells you to do something you do it,” said Maureen. That’s why I wrote my book.”
Additionally she gives kudos to friend Jack O’Halloran, a former heavyweight boxer, iconic actor and author. He opened the door for her to get an agent and find a publisher with Franklin Publishing. His thoughts about her story are printed on the book’s back cover.
“This is a story to encourage people to not give up on their dreams,” she said.
And a big part of her life’s influence was her Uncle Eddie.
In her book’s introduction, Maureen writes: “I still feel Eddie watching over me, his warm smile ever present—especially in my 88Keys Piano Studio and Performance Space, where his picture hung as a silent reminder of where it all began.”
To learn about this woman who has many stories to share, visit her website Maureen Girard.