Extraordinary Beethoven, and an Adventurous Streak

The pianist Stewart Goodyear plays the standards brilliantly, and also writes music that nods to rock and calypso.

The Canadian pianist Stewart Goodyear never knew his father, who died of cancer a month before he was born. But Stewart Sr., an aspiring writer, left his only child a rich musical legacy in the form of a large, eclectic collection of LP recordings. Even when he was just 3 or 4, Goodyear was enthralled by Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Ravi Shankar, Joe Cocker and Carlos Santana. But it was two boxes containing the complete symphonies of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky that made him want to become a musician. “Somehow I sensed that there was never a limit to the emotions expressed in this music,” Goodyear, 43, said in a recent interview. “This was the world I wanted to be a part of.”