POMFRET — Playing for Patrick CDs are now available at Pomfret businesses.  Pizza 101, Martha’s Herbary, the Vanilla Bean, Pomfret Spirit Shoppe, and the Pomfret School Store are offering Pat’s CD for $15 to benefit his scholarship at Pomfret School.  

Playing for Patrick is a live recording of a memorial concert for Patrick Wood by his piano teachers at the Pomfret School chapel last fall.  Howard Frazin and Deborah Yardley Beers composed and performed original pieces.  Kathleen Stephenson Sadoff, and Margreet Pfeifer Francis performed pieces by Chopin and Schumann.  Ann Warde, who first guided Patrick’s voracious appetite for music, contributed a digital recording based on piano four-hand pieces she played with Patrick when he was 7 years old. The CD culminates with Patrick’s own performance of the Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor.

“Patrick was a brilliant but sensitive student, and these teachers knew how to guide without being too demanding.  Their tactfulness and expertise is reflected in the fine pieces they played and which are now available on the CD,” said Lisette Rimer, Patrick’s mom.  “Pomfret businesses have been longtime supporters of Pat’s scholarship with sales from his first CD, Patrick Wood: Piano Solo and Trio, at over $1,500.”  Both CDs are also available at www.PatrickWoodPrize.org.  

Patrick was a Peck Scholar at Pomfret School and a National Merit Scholarship winner.  He earned perfect SAT scores and went on to graduate with distinction from Stanford University in 2005.  He was a computer programmer for the Automation and Drive division of Siemens in Berlin when he took his own life at age 23.  

“The CD is a tribute to Patrick and the magnitude of his loss, but it is also a recognition that gifted students are vulnerable to depression.  We have to be vigilant for students of all abilities.” Rimer said.