Leon Fleisher was born July 23, 1928 in San Francisco, California and began studying piano at the age of four. A noted child prodigy, Fleisher became a student of Artur Schnabel at the age of nine, after which Fleisher's career in piano began in earnest. In 1964, he began to suffer from focal dystonia, a condition that cost him the use of his right hand until corrected in the mid-1990s. Fleisher is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a recepient of the Kennedy Center Honors Award (2007), and the Andrew W. Mellon Chair at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins. In this oral history, Fleisher describes his early career and mentors, his experiences with the Peabody Institute and Baltimore, and the history of the Peabody Institute, including its formal association with Johns Hopkins in 1978. This oral history is part of the Mame Warren oral histories series.

Sylvia Betts Dodd graduated from the Peabody Conservatory in 1951. She remained active at Peabody for many years as a member of the Peabody Conservatory Alumni Association, the Alumni Steering Committee, and the Peabody Women's Board. She also devoted many volunteer hours to Maryland libraries, serving as a volunteer at Enoch Pratt Free Library for more than 40 years and as a board member of Citizens for Maryland Libraries for more than 10 years. In this oral history, Dodd describes her days as a student at the Peabody Conservatory and her years of service after graduation. This oral history is part of the Hopkins Retrospective oral histories series.