Editors’ note: This story was updated on Oct. 23 to correct a numerical error in Billias’s years of teaching experience and a reporting error in the details of  Billias’s first piano. 

For Anna Billias, music unites people across time and place as a universal language.

“The remarkable thing about piano is that anyone can understand it,” she said. “No matter if you are a musician or a mathematician, music is the same language we all speak.”

No one knows that better than Billias, whose music traveled with her across the world before she arrived at Washington and Lee nine years ago as its collaborative pianist.

Billias grew up in Soviet-era Ukraine in a city called Donetsk. She said she received her initial piano education from her mother, and soon after, her parents bought her a new, rare German piano — one of just two imported to the region that year. 

“To have a piano during that time, Soviet times, was a very special thing that was not available to all,” she said. She thanks her father for the sacrifices he made to acquire it, she said, and her mother for teaching her and instilling a passion for music within her.

Billias entered into an intensive music conservatory at the age of 17 to learn more. During this time, she also attended the National Donetsk University where she studied Roman-German Philology. Pursuing two degrees at different institutions at once while balancing everything else life had in store was not easy, she said.

“At that point it was very hard to continue. I had a baby, I was receiving two degrees — you know, life in Ukraine at that time was not as it is here. At a certain point, I was the only breadwinner, so I had to go start working. I was going through a divorce, I started working on top of finishing school, and at that point I truly did not envision myself connecting my future with music.”

For a year after college, Billias did not touch a piano. It was not until she met her second husband, who she lovingly refers to as her “beloved,” that she began to allow music into her life again. The first time she played for him, her husband had tears in his eyes.

When she moved to America with her husband, he bought her a piano. It connected her back to her life in her home country, she said.

“Piano was my friend from the old life of mine,” she said.

Billias did not envision a future in teaching when she moved to America. But, when she heard from a friend that Sweet Briar College needed an accompanist, she jumped on the opportunity.

A few years later, Sweet Briar was facing a potential foreclosure, and an opening was created at Washington and Lee for a collaborative pianist. She described this as a time of high uncertainty — for the students she loved so much at Sweet Briar and for her career.

Shortly after she began at Washington and Lee, Sweet Briar announced that it would not be closing, and since then she has continued to teach at both institutions. Now, after being a teacher for over 17 years, she says that teaching is one of the greatest blessings in her life.

Billias teaches classes, accompanies studio lessons, the choir and more. Outside of Lenfest, she accompanies church services on Sundays, teaches private piano lessons in her home, and is a devoted wife and mother to her three children. She plays over 60 concerts a year, she said.

When she is not working, she practices music in her free time at home and says her family is “used to having a lot of music in the house.” She recalled a time when her children would fall asleep during her concerts because it is the music they heard while drifting off to sleep every night.

When she is playing music, she said she feels like the vessel between the composer and the audience.

“I am trying to push all of the personal stuff of mine to the side and focus on this ciphering of the music I am playing and delivering it on such a level it is convincing,” she said. “I want the goosebumps moments to be there. Because when you tell the music what you want, rather than allowing the music to lead you, the spirit is not there.”

Today, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 is still one of her favorite pieces to play as it always evokes strong emotions and brings her back to her motherland, she said. Franz Liszt’s “Liebestraum” is another piece that is especially dear to her heart, not only because it is a piece she learned early on, but because it is the first piece she ever played for her husband.