View Comments
Los Angeles Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka told a story about his former client Kobe Bryant at the memorial service to honor him, sharing how Bryant wanted to learn Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.”
- Pelinka said Bryant was struggling with his time away from his wife Vanessa Bryant and young family because of his road schedule for the Los Angeles Lakers.
- One night, Bryant was sitting at a piano under a moonlit sky and told Pelinka that he wanted to learn the song for his family.
- Pelinka: “Kobe said he hadn’t been sleeping much because he was missing V and the girls. ... So at night he vowed to teach himself — by ear — to play the first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata ... by the end of the week he had the entire piece mastered.”
- The next time Bryant called Pelinka, he had learned the entire first movement of the piece.
- Alicia Keys appeared at the memorial event to perform the song thereafter.