Items Tagged ‘Piano’
May 13, 2016
By Lee Aase 
Marlow Cowan, whose playful piano duet in our Mayo Clinic atrium with his wife, Frances, became a YouTube sensation and led to national and international TV appearances, has passed away at age 97. I got the news early yesterday in an email from the Cowans’ daughter, DeDe Shour: One of the last questions a week […]
Tags: Frances Cowan, Good Morning, Marlow Cowan, Piano
August 4, 2014
In a moment … a poem, and a vision of hope
Sometimes the only way to respond to a thing of beauty is to pour your thoughts out onto the page. And that’s what Mayo Clinic patient Jerry O’Donnell, of Waterloo, Iowa, did after being moved, perhaps even changed, by experiencing the beauty of music in the atrium of the Gonda Building on Mayo’s Rochester campus. […]
Tags: Cancer, Gonda Building, Piano
October 31, 2011
Kent Alexander’s Beautiful Voice
By MakalaArce 
Many patients have a fond musical memory from Mayo Clinic’s Gonda Atrium. Patients and employees will often be seen taking a break by playing piano or singing. Some musicians that have touched many lives over the years on the piano are known on YouTube as the Cowans and the 15-yr. old pianist. Recently, a musician touched […]
Tags: Atrium, beautiful, Gonda, Kent Alexander, music, Piano, sing, voice
July 4, 2011
Cowans living “Healthfully Ever After”
By Lee Aase
Just over two years ago, Marlow Cowan and his wife Frances became Internet sensations when a video of their piano duet at Mayo Clinic went “viral” after being posted here on Sharing Mayo Clinic. In less than two months, their video racked up more than two million views, and now stands at over 7.6 million […]
Tags: Fran Cowan, Gonda Building, Marlow Cowan, Piano
April 5, 2010
By Lee Aase
Marlow and Frances Cowan, the Ankeny, Iowa couple whose impromptu piano duet in the Gonda building atrium at Mayo Clinic has been seen more than 7 million times on YouTube, are now officially international media sensations. Their original duet, which was captured by another patient, posted to YouTube by her daughter and posted to Sharing Mayo […]
Tags: Cowans, Des Moines Register, Frances Cowan, Japan, Jodi Hume, Marlow Cowan, Mayo Clinic, NHK, Piano, Piano duet, Sharon Turner, Tokyo
May 25, 2009
Mayo Clinic “Octogenarian Idols” Appear on Good Morning America
By Lee Aase
Marlow and Frances Cowan, the Iowa couple whose piano duet in the atrium of Mayo Clinic’s Gonda building has been viewed more than 2 million times since April 7, were featured this morning, May 26, on Good Morning America, live from ABC’s Times Square studio in New York. I had an opportunity to interview Mr. and […]
Tags: Atrium, Frances Cowan, Gonda, Marlow Cowan, Mayo Clinic, music, Older couple, Piano
April 23, 2009
By Jodi Hume 
When I think about my family’s history with the Mayo Clinic, I immediately think of the kitchen ceiling in my childhood home, where a pale orange circle about the size of a basketball is forever stained into the plaster. Most people probably wouldn’t even notice it’s there, but we do. It has a story, of […]
Tags: Gonda, Mayo Clinic, Patient Stories, Piano
April 7, 2009
By Lee Aase
We’ve highlighted the contributions of music to the healing environment at Mayo Clinic in some previous posts, but here’s another video from last fall that we discovered on YouTube. The exuberance of this older couple playing in the Gonda Building will brighten your day. For more background on how this video came to be, see […]
Tags: Gonda Building, music, Piano
April 2, 2009
15-year-old Pianist Touches Hearts and Souls
Catherine Benson is a consultant in Public Affairs at Mayo Clinic. Alex Walton-Creutz began drawing crowds by playing the piano at Mayo Clinic when he was just eight years old and started coming to the clinic with his mother, Lynnette. Lynnette is a patient at Mayo and comes for treatment at least once a year. When […]
Tags: Alex Walton Creutz, Beethoven, Gonda Building, Lynette Creutz, Mayo Clinic, medicine, music, pianist, Piano
March 30, 2009
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star: Music to Brighten the Day
As an employee at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, I find myself frequently scurrying through the many buildings on the downtown campus as I go about my day. One of my favorite places to walk through is the subway level of the Gonda Building, also known as the Nathan Landow Atrium. Sitting in front of a […]