Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

NNSL (Nov 23/98) - Hay River has been a different place since Albina Gross came to town in 1995.

Gross is a native of Kishinev in the Republic of Moldova, once a part of the former Soviet Union, located between the Ukraine and Romania on the Black Sea.

She and Tom, now her husband, had begun writing letters through a friend.

In July '94, the two met near Vancouver, fell in love and were married in Cambridge Bay, where Tom Gross lived and worked. Tom's job took them to Hay River a few months later.

"She certainly has brightened our lives," says Marilyn Barnes, librarian at the Centennial Library. "It's her gift."

That gift is the gift of music. Gross is a pianist. And at 36, she has almost 30 years of piano study and piano play behind her.

Gross explains she began piano study at age seven, continued in college, and finally studied at the G. Muzicescu State Institute of Art. She then taught and worked as an accompanist, finally entering the Pedagogical Institute as a lecturer.

"But when you work at this level, it requires a masters degree," says Gross.

So, off she went to the Lenin Pedagogical University in Moscow.

"But the Soviet Union started collapsing, the political system collapsed," Gross says. "It affected the Moldovian government's funding. It was at the time even the Academy of Science fell apart."

Gross went on to the Academy of Music in Bucharest, Romania. Six months away from completing her course of study in music history, amid an unstable political climate, she left.

"It was a little hard for my body to adjust," she says of living in the North. "Living by the Black Sea is quite like living in British Columbia."

Yet, being surrounded by nature has given Gross peace of mind and a renewed love of playing.

"Since coming to Canada I am much more involved in playing," Gross says. "Before it was mostly study and library time."

Upon arriving in Hay River, Gross naturally gravitated to the library and its piano.

Gross plays for the Anglican Church, she does recitals, both solo and with others, and twice a year the library has a concert and she plays.

She also has five students, whom she believes are very serious about the music.

Now Gross, who originally volunteered at the library, works there.

"I had gotten used to libraries," Gross says with a laugh. "I enjoy it. I like working with people and there's a piano."