On a brisk, dusky Monday evening in New York City, 16 members of the Brinton family — including grandparents, parents, siblings and cousins — gathered to pray in the warmly-lit Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall before their March 23 performance.
These Brintons, who all play piano, prayed to “lift” the audience and “make sure that we perform to the best of our ability,” said Kate Brinton, 15, who also prays before she performs individually.
Kate, who has won multiple prizes in music competitions, sometimes worries, “What if I mess up? What if I freeze? What if I forget?”
“I just know that if Heavenly Father wants me to do a good job — and if there’s people that need to be helped — then if I try my best and I do my best and I practice, He’ll help me do what I need to do,” said Kate.
Music for a better world
The program began with a piece from an early 20th century Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich — an extremely complicated, fast-paced number — played by 11-year-old Alexa Brinton.
Following suit, Thomas Brinton, 9; Michael Brinton, 18; Adaline Harris, 7; Ella Parker, 7; Nelson Harris, 10; Marie Parker, 10; Caleb Harris, 8; Hailey Parker, 12; and Ruby Brinton, 8, added to the musical grandeur with pieces by legendary composers such as Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.
Also that evening, family matriarch Sally Brinton and her daughters, Lindsey Brinton Harris and Stephanie Brinton Parker, performed for the second time at Carnegie Hall since 2006. They both played on their own and accompanied younger pianists. Sally Brinton’s son, Jonathan Brinton, also accompanied the performers with the cello.
“If you can learn to serve others and be able to impart your talent to other people, you can lift them and make them happy. And what does that do? It just makes the world a better place,” Sally Brinton said.
Developing talents
Kate and her brother Jackson Brinton, 16, performed towards the end of the program.
“In the Chopin piece I played, there were two parts of a certain theme, so I played the first part louder and the second part a little quieter just to create contrast,” said Jackson, who chose his own music.
He loves playing, experimenting with and sharing classical music.
“Music just brings a lot of peace to people’s lives,” he said.
Kate also put her own “Kate Brinton touches” on the music, she said, noting her artistic style on the song she played by 19th-century Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, “Un Sospiro” — Italian for “a sigh.”
“When I’m playing for an audience, I know that they’ve spent time to come here, so I’m trying to share my love for music with them,” she said.
Said Sally Brinton of having tutored many of her grandchildren in both piano and life: “It brings them a lot of joy. I don’t even have to ask them to practice.”
Her high-priority lessons are to develop “discipline and consistency” and to “awaken with a grateful heart.”
Musical inheritance
Sally Brinton, who is the mother of seven children, grandmother of 38 and great-grandmother of one, learned piano from her mother, DeVota Mifflin Peterson.
As a child, Peterson saved up money for a piano by selling quarts of milk for 5 cents.
When she became a mother, she noticed young Sally tinkering with the piano keys and decided to teach her to play.
Brinton remembered how she had to prioritize daily 30-minute practice sessions over playing with friends — “a little bit painful,” she remarked. Her mother drew the curtains to cut out distractions, and once Sally had finished, allowed her to play outside.
Realizing her daughter was gifted, Peterson switched her to a different teacher when she had surpassed her mother’s abilities.
Brinton appreciated being noticed and nurtured. “I am so, so grateful for her wisdom.”
These small and simple teachings led to great accomplishments (Alma 37:6). Sally later attended the Juilliard School for performing arts in New York City as a young woman, became a mother and led her family in sharing the light of Christ through music.
‘Every person has goodness’
Twelve of her 38 grandchildren shared their musical talents for a sold-out audience of 250 people that March 23 evening.
On stage, Sally Brinton paid tribute to her grandmother, Sarah James, who trekked to the American West from Wales as a newly baptized member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The trek was trying, but her relatives sang “The Spirit of God” together for hope.
Music gave her pioneer ancestors “courage to go another day,” she said.
Besides their deceased relatives, the Brinton family still has many members. When they projected a picture of the whole family behind the stage, “you could hear an audible gasp from the audience,” said Brinton, who noted that people aren’t used to seeing a family of that size. But for the Brinton family, deceased ancestors and living relatives alike, the experience of music has been unifying.
Addressing the audience at Weill Hall — a blend of piano teachers, New Yorkers, Brinton family members and others — Brinton boldly shared her testimony.
“I just wanted them to know that I know that God loves each and every one of us,” she said.
Adding that she never lets an opportunity go by without sharing this message, she said: “Every person has goodness in them.”
