McBrayers Award Piano

05/29/2026

05/24/2026

05/14/2026

Cowtown remains Texas’ fourth-largest city after Houston, San Antonio and Dallas, U.S. Census Bureau data shows.

05/10/2026

A $50 broken piano, 10 missing keys, 1 acid trip, and the album Sketches of Spain on repeat for hours.

In late 1965, Grace Slick sat down in front of a battered red upright piano she had bought for fifty dollars. Eight or ten keys in the upper register did not work.

She did not care.

As she later said, she could already hear the missing notes in her head.

That night, after taking L*D and listening to Miles Davis and Gil Evans’s Sketches of Spain over and over again, she started writing. First came the lyrics. She read them aloud repeatedly, searching for the rhythm hidden inside her own voice.

Then she turned to the broken piano.

What emerged was slow, hypnotic, and impossible to ignore. A Spanish-style march inspired partly by Ravel’s Bolero, wrapped inside the surreal imagery of Alice in Wonderland.

She called it White Rabbit.

The song was never only about drugs. And it was never just about fantasy either. Grace Slick said “feed your head” meant more than psychedelics. It meant curiosity. Reading. Thinking for yourself.

She saw Alice as something rare for women in storytelling at the time: a girl who moved through chaos without waiting for rescue. Alice followed her own curiosity wherever it led.

Slick believed women could learn something from that.

But White Rabbit also carried another target hidden beneath the music: hypocrisy.

Grace watched adults drink behind closed doors while warning younger people never to experiment with altered states. Yet those same adults filled children’s stories with dreamlike drug metaphors. Dorothy collapsed in a poppy field. Peter Pan used fairy dust to fly. Alice swallowed pills and ate mushrooms while reality twisted around her.

The contradiction fascinated her.

When Grace Slick joined Jefferson Airplane in 1966, she arrived fully formed. She brought White Rabbit with her, along with Somebody to Love, written by her brother-in-law Darby Slick.

Both songs exploded through Surrealistic Pillow in 1967 and became defining sounds of the counterculture generation.

White Rabbit climbed to number eight on the Billboard charts and eventually entered the Grammy Hall of Fame. Decades later, it still echoes through films, commercials, and the minds of anyone who ever wondered what existed beyond the rules they were handed.

But the most remarkable thing about Grace Slick came later.

She never lost control of her life.

While many musicians from her era burned through fortunes or chased fading relevance, Slick handled fame differently. Raised by a father who worked as an investment banker, she understood money and protected what she created.

Then, at fifty years old, she simply stopped performing.

No dramatic collapse.
No desperate comeback.

She retired after a Jefferson Airplane reunion tour in 1989 because she believed rock and roll belonged to youth and honesty. Singing rage you no longer felt, she said, looked ridiculous.

Today, Grace Slick paints beside the ocean in Malibu. White rabbits still appear across her canvases, alongside portraits of rock legends she once stood beside.

She followed the white rabbit all the way through and discovered something Alice eventually learned too.

Freedom means knowing when to walk away with your art, your voice, and yourself still intact.

05/08/2026

August 5, 1973 Leon headlined "Day on the Green" at the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum.

📷: Jim Marshall Photography LLC

01/07/2026

SEE US FOR YOUR NEXT PIANO

01/07/2026

Join our team! We're hiring for two positions: an Artistic Planning and Operations Coordinator and a Marketing Associate. Apply now or share with someone who you think would be a great addition to the Cliburn team. Link in the comments.

The Cliburn offers a distinctive work experience, with a fast-paced, collaborative environment where team members are encouraged to take responsibility and achieve excellence. Located in beautiful offices in downtown Fort Worth, the Cliburn staff enjoys being an integral part of this community while operating as a major international cultural institution.

12/15/2025

Mattie Parker Supports the Film Industry: Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker is a strong advocate for investing in the film industry and has successfully positioned it as the city's "next great industry". Her efforts have included advocating for increased state incentives and supporting local development, resulting in significant economic growth for Fort Worth.

Mayor Parker has testified before the Texas Senate Finance Committee to increase the state's film incentives program (Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program - TMIIIP) to better compete with other states. This advocacy helped secure a commitment of $1.5 billion in state incentives over the next decade.

The film industry has generated nearly $1 billion in economic impact and created over 50,000 jobs in Fort Worth since the Fort Worth Film Commission was established in 2015.

• Studio Development: Parker has supported the development of major production facilities, including the new SGS Studios in the Alliance area, which is the largest operating film studio in Texas and home to many of Taylor Sheridan's (creator of Yellowstone and 1883) productions.

• Workforce Development: The city has partnered with educational institutions like Tarrant County College to create pathways for students to work in the film industry, training a local workforce to fill high-paying jobs in the booming sector.

• Attracting Productions: Fort Worth has become a hub for high-profile projects, including 1883, Landman, and Lioness, which spend millions locally and hire thousands of Texas-based crew and cast members.
Mayor Parker views the film industry's growth as a transformative economic driver, comparing its potential to the historical impacts of cattle, railroads, defense, and energy sectors on the city's development. More information can be found on the City of Fort Worth's official website.
The Fort Worth Film Commission reports that since its founding in 2015, it has worked with more than 1,000 film, television, and commercial projects, driving over 1 Billion in economic impact and supporting more than 50,000 jobs — covering roles from crew and extras to vendors, service providers, and hospitality workers connected to film production. Fort Worth

The 50,000+ jobs figure typically refers to jobs supported by film industry activity overall, including direct production jobs and indirect jobs supported through related spending (like hotels, food services, transportation, and other local businesses). It isn’t usually a claim that 50,000 new full-time permanent jobs were just recently created, but rather that the industry’s growth has supported or enabled that many job opportunities over time and across many projects in Fort Worth