I come from a very musical family. My mother was a church organist and at age 70 traveled around and played piano to entertain the elderly in nursing homes in Chicago! I'm so proud of her. My father played piano, trumpet and drums. All three of my sisters play guitar.
My pride and joy is my 6'4" Petrof grand piano (below) which has a singing, Boesendorfer-like tone for a much lower price. Lately I play nothing but Debussy and Chopin when I have time to play at all. Here is my Debussy page
I've recently built a virtual pipe organ. Click on the picture for details
While my music is primarily oriented around piano, I also play guitar and renaissance lute well enough to perform in renaissance fairs near Chicago in the late 70's, early 80's. Here's a picture from 1982 of me and a singer performing a Dowland lute song for fellow performers during an informal moment. Click for a larger version.
I've dabbled in other instruments: I studied the Chinese Erhu with the Erhu master Jiebing Chen, learned flute, and was in the Chicago Old Town Renaissance Consort in the late 70's, playing (not very well) recorder, crumhorn, shaum, and Viol de Gamba. But keyboards are my main interest. I've owned several synthesizers, including the 1975 vintage minimoog that I received as a high school graduation present, and several Roland synths. These days, however, I've moved entirely to computer-based synthesizers which take up a lot less room and are much cheaper. Lately I've enjoyed playing these synthesizers with the EWI USB wind controller.
I've done a little composing, writing sound tracks for sky shows at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago from 1977 to 1981, Here's a picture of me and my synthesizers (including my minimoog) at Adler in 1980. Click on the image to see the production staff and a description of the sky show production process, from a 1980 guide book.
Since the late 80's I've been composing and performing new-age space-music type compositions. You can find some of my compositions as MP3's here.
I listen to a range from classical (my latest discovery is Toru Takemitsu) through David Parsons (new age electronic) through African (check out Rhythm of the Pridelands!) to Yes and Jon Anderson.