Stephen Clapps memorial was held at Juilliard last evening. The long-time Juilliard violin professor and dean of the school for a significant number of years, was a good friend and came to teach at my string camps in Tennessee and San Diego. This picture of Stephen at my San Diego string camp had been featured on my website for many years. The picture of the Pacific ocean was the view from our campus where we taught. It was amazing to have Stephen there with us as he had legendary status in classical violin pedagogy. One of my favorite stories about Stephen was from his Nashville days. He was the founding member of the Blair String Quartet at Vanderbilt in the 1960s. While he was there, he traded lessons with another one of my heroes, the great country session fiddler Buddy Spicher. Buddy taught him fiddling and jazz, while Stephen helped Buddy with his classical to the point that Buddy got to play with the Nashville Symphony for a year. Needless to say, in every way, Stephen was perfect for our inclusive string camp mission. It was also amazing to bring those two gentleman together at my camps after all those years. As Stephen was beginning to help me bring the OConnor String Camp to Juilliard in 2007, Stephen retired as the dean. As Juilliard President Polisi stated in his remarks at the memorial yesterday, he asked Stephen was there anything he could do to persuade him in continuing as dean? Stephen replied, yes - stop all the hundreds of emails that come into my inbox every day. Stephen loved teaching. He didnt love administrating as much of course, but he was also excellent at it. But having a violin-playing dean was surely a once in a lifetime chance for me to bring my string camp environment to Julliard. Because he retired at the moment we began talks, it never did come to be. But I was more than convinced that the string camp should be in NYC as he was. I was able to put it on for two years, literally two blocks away from Julliard at the Ethical Cultural Center successfully in 2009 and 10, before Berklee College took it to Boston since 2011. It was Stephen that made me believe that it was time for this in the big music centers of the world. Stephen had a heart of gold, and an incredible teacher. This photograph depicting the view of the ocean that we all enjoyed right next to Stephens classes, was also the photo positioned next to Stephens on the string camp page of the website all of these years. It reminds me of the beautify of Stephen as a person. Last evening, after a pre college student of his performed, the resident student string quartet performed (the first violinist had lessons from Stephen), then all 18 students in Stephens current studio took the stage for a Telemann Concerto that sounded absolutely glorious in Paul Recital Hall. He kept this studio of 18 beautiful players, teaching them throughout his battle with lung cancer even managing this in his final weeks. (Stephen never smoked). In the reception I went up to many of the Juilliard students and talked about Stephen with them. Many recalled Stephen talking to them about his trips to the San Diego camps as they were taking lessons from him as pre college students. I asked many who were tearful at the end of the performance who they were going to study with next year. One player said Daniel Phillips who is a great friend of mine, another said that they will be in the iconic Itzak Perlmans studio. There were many significant teachers there to pay their respects. One of the things Stephen was known to say was it is better to be loving than to be right. We say goodbye to a beautiful player, a beautiful teacher and a great man indeed. -Mark OConnor Stephen Clapp 1939-2014
Posted on: Thu, 22 May 2014 13:02:20 +0000
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