Some teachers are more special than others. They change your life as well as your fingering. You remember details that remain compelling, that continue to stimulate your thoughts and actions long after you stop taking lessons.

If you're lucky, you've had one piano teacher who inspired you to settle for nothing less than art--in music and in life. For me, that teacher is Jill Timmons, and that's why we sit in her studio at Linfield College, in McMinnville, Oregon, on an airless August morning as I metamorphose from student to interviewer. The passion I've seen in Timmons as a performer and teacher now pours out in her words, and within minutes our discussion moves from her career to her passions--science, spirituality, Jungian psychology, gardening--and, of course, music.

"There are no coincidences," she says. "You notice events, and farm them. Life has lived me. I've gone where it has taken me." I find this surprising. The Timmons with whom I've studied, exhibits meticulous attention to detail and planning. Life lives you? She may believe this, but frankly, I'm skeptical.

After finishing a Master of Music degree from Boston University and Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Washington, Timmons performed solo recitals at Carnegie Hall and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Her Chicago debut on the Dame Myra Hess Series was broadcast live on WFMT to 400 cable stations nationwide. She is now artist-in-residence at Linfield College.

"I follow my interests and passions, and I know I will find my way," she states, with a conviction that reminds me of Jung's comment, "I don't believe, I know." Timmons recounts how chance incidents brought her to the University of Washington. She tells how a series of events led her to lessons with Gyorgy Sebok. She lists concerts, recordings, and her appointment at Linfield. As I listen, I see my narrow, tight worldview expand and relax--a gift shes given me repeatedly over the years I've studied with her. And I wonder how she has given me, and the other pianists who make the pilgrimage to McMinnville, the belief that we can be artists.

"Anybody who walks into this studio has to have something on the ball," she says. "It takes tremendous work and interest to get to a level where you play advanced literature, and very few people have that." She stops and thinks. "Within each of us is greatness, a divine spark. And there is only one of us. That's a tremendous amount of material to work with." She laughs, "I hardly have to do a thing!"

Not really an accurate statement. In lessons that always run over their allotted time, Timmons demonstrates the physics of playing the piano, the psychological and existential components of the music, and shows that if the fourth finger doesn't collapse in the middle of the run, a passage may be possible to execute. She believes that playing the piano is a perfectly natural activity. The question is, "What's getting in the way?"

"When you are at an advanced level, piano-playing is really about taking your power as an artist. When you get to that point, studying the piano is studying to learn about yourself." Her philosophy shows in her playing. For her 1985 Carnegie Hall debut, she abandoned the safe route and programmed the music of William Bergsma. It was a gamble that worked. Tim Page wrote in The New York Times, "She is a sensitive musician...Her playing is graceful, lyrical, detailed, and intimate." Her career, in fact, has been built on abandoning safe routes and choosing, instead, to follow her passions. From her recording of the complete piano works of Bergsma to her current project of co-writing the English and French biography of Alexandre Tansman with her husband, conductor, Sylvain Frémaux, Timmons follows where her interests lead. But self-examination hasn't always been easy.

At one point she wanted to give up playing the piano. It was a year when shed played 40 concerts, on top of a full teaching load at Linfield. She called Sebok for advice. He listened to her story, then replied, "We all get fed up." Timmons spent the rest of the summer digging in her garden, canning, and avoiding the piano until a Schubert sonata lured her back to the keyboard. We talk about the dark side of life. I ask her how she can continue to play the piano when theres so much pain and suffering in the world. Are we doing our duty to other human beings by practicing Mozart when there are so many people to fee, so many causes that urgently need our support? "Somebody has to tend the garden," she replies. "The garden is where we as humans go to refresh ourselves, to reflect, to learn, to understand. If the garden is beautiful, it will support you. This goes beyond classical music. It's anything of beauty."

She tells of playing a concert in Wickenberg, Arizona, a town she describes as a "Cowboy Capital." People packed the local high school cafeteria to hear her play Liszt, Debussy, and Bergsma. At a reception after the concert, a man wearing a big silver belt buckle and cowboy boots walked up to her and said, "I like those 20th-century pieces. They're pretty good!" She grins at me. "There's your garden."

There are too many gardeners, I tell her. And the master gardeners seem to have all the good plots cultivated for themselves. "There aren't enough pianists in the world," she replies. "A friend told me that years ago, and I thought she was crazy. But she also said, 'There aren't enough pianists when you consider how much music still needs to be played.' It changed my whole philosophy of playing."

The world is richer thanks to her interest in non-mainstream composers. Her 1993 recording of the complete piano music of William Bergsma on Laurel Records garnered enthusiastic reviews. Fanfare wrote, "Timmons soars with the eagles. She plays with vitality and élan." She recorded Dexter Morrill, Music for Strings on Capston, and Centaur will soon release her latest project, Amy Beach: Music for Violin/Viola and Piano, recorded with Laura Klugherz.

I ask about current projects, and her enthusiasm becomes palpable. She talks about the upcoming biography of Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986), and of the Wilk prize she and her husband received for their 60-page monograph on the Polish composer. Tansman is one of those composers from this century who has fallen into relative obscurity, and yet have composed a wealth of exceptional music. He was born into a Jewish family in Poland. He later became a French citizen and, during World War II, lived in exile for several years in Hollywood, California.

I've never heard any of Tansman's music, and I ask about his compositional style. "His style includes tonality, atonality, jazz, Polish folk idioms, motoric rhythms, and serial techniques." She pauses. "He has an abiding love of lyricism, and an almost religious enthusiasm for neo-classicism." Timmons and Frémaux researched Tansman with the Screen Composers Association and the Film Music Society, and traveled to France to work personally with Tansmans daughters, Mireille Tansman-Anuttini and Marienne Tansman-Martinozzi. They studied all documents pertaining to Tansman--American and French--and meticulously acquainted themselves with his music. He composed more than 300 compositions in all genres. "Tansman's story is one of artistic and human survival," Timmons adds. "He himself often remarked that his life was a 'succession of miracles.'" There it is again. No coincidences--miracles. She speaks of plans to record Tansman's music, and of an upcoming tour to France.

We change the subject. Timmons tells of other European tours she will be taking--more performances, more stories, more beautiful music to share. "There are so many places you can take the music," she says. "Audiences are audiences. I like the notion of being the person that takes in someplace interesting. I like the notion of doing an American program in Innsbruck!"

Or doing a Viennese program in Vienna? She laughs. Its a favorite memory. She and Klugherz were backstage waiting to perform. Timmons was panicking, blaming herself, the gods, and Klugherz for programming Viennese composers in the Bösendorfer Hall. They wore full concert dress, and--except for the stockings--were the models of serious classical musicians. Under their black skirts they both wore bordello-quality decorated stockings, purchased earlier that day on a whim. Klugherz, after listening to Timmons rant for awhile, deadpanned, "Do you think they'll notice our stockings?" They started the concert late because it took them ten minutes to stop laughing.

She has lots of performance stories. Last year when she, Klugherz, and the Syracuse Symphony premiered The Iron Horse Concerto, a piece Dexter Morrill wrote specifically for them, Klugherz fell down a flight of stairs, violin in hand, 30 minutes before the performance and broke her foot. The fearless violinist had it wrapped. They found a stool for her to sit on, and the show went on. They performed the West Coast premiere of the same work with the Linfield Chamber Orchestra while Timmons suffered from flu so badly she found herself in the hospital emergency room hours after the performance.

I ask her what's missing, what she wants to have accomplished when shes 80. I cringe as I hear myself broach the question, knowing it sounds like a TV interview. She thinks a minute. "I want to have said, 'I was. I am.' I want to be able to say, I'm playing as well as I can. That I have cleaned up my stuff, and am playing to the limits of my abilities. I want to be the best parent I could be. I want to have been a good partner to my husband." She grins. "I want an extraordinary garden."

Timmons is silent. Then she tells me about studying with Sebok, and about the dream. "In 1983 I went to study with Sebok in Switzerland. I had a masterclass lesson, in front of 30 major pianists, and a private lesson with him one day. That night I dreamed I was in an octagonal room with eight doors. They were white, had no identifying features, and I couldn't figure out which door to open. Finally I said, 'Screw it! I'll just open the door in front of me.' I opened the door, and walked out into the universe. It was the most incredible feeling. Thats what he did for me."

Silence. "That's beyond someone writing in fingering. That's what I want to be able to say I gave my students--that I enlarged their boundaries. That I was a mentor for people unlocking their true potential."