Stephen Clapp (November 27, 1939 – January 26, 2014) was a violinist and Dean Emeritus of the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most ...

Education

Clapp earned the B.M degree from the

Oberlin Conservatory The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is a private music conservatory in Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. It was founded in 1865 and is the second oldest conservatory and oldest continually operating conservatory in the United States. It is one of ...

and the M.S. degree from the

. He was a student of

Dorothy DeLay Dorothy DeLay (March 31, 1917 – March 24, 2002) was an American violin instructor, primarily at the Juilliard School, Sarah Lawrence College, and the University of Cincinnati. Life Dorothy DeLay was born on March 31, 1917, in Medicine Lo ...

Ivan Galamian Ivan Alexander Galamian ( hy, Իվան Ղալամեան; April 14, 1981) was an Armenian-American violin teacher of the twentieth century who was the violin teacher of many seminal violin players including Itzhak Perlman. Biography Galamian w ...

, and

Andor Toth Andor John Toth (June 16, 1925 – November 28, 2006) was an American classical violinist, conductor and educator with a musical career spanning over six decades. Toth played his violin on the World War II battlefields of Aachen, Germany; performe ...

. He studied

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small num ...

with

Claus Adam Claus Adam (November 5, 1917 – July 4, 1983) was an American cellist and cello teacher as well as a composer. His music teachers include Emanuel Feuermann for cello, Stefan Wolpe for composition, and Léon Barzin for conducting. He served a ...

Robert Mann Robert Nathaniel Mann (July 19, 1920 – January 1, 2018) was a violinist, composer, conductor, and founding member of the Juilliard String Quartet, as well as a faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music. Mann, the first violinist at Ju ...

Felix Galimir Felix Galimir (May 20, 1910, Vienna – November 10, 1999, New York) was an Austrian-born American violinist and music teacher. Born in a Sephardic Jewish family Vienna; his first language was Ladino. Allan Kozinn,"Felix Galimir, 89, a Violi ...

Raphael Hillyer Raphael Hillyer (April 10, 1914 – December 27, 2010) was a Jewish American viola soloist, teacher. Born Raphael Silverman in Ithaca, New York, his career included playing in the Boston Symphony Orchestra and co-founding the Juilliard String ...

Louis Persinger Louis Persinger (11 February 1887, Rochester, Illinois31 December 1966, New York, New York) was an American violinist, pianist and professor of violin. Persinger had early lessons in Colorado, appearing in public by the age of 12. His main studies ...

, and

Walter Trampler Walter Trampler (August 25, 1915 – September 27, 1997) was a German musician and teacher of the viola and viola d'amore. Born in Munich, he was given his first lessons at age six by his violinist father. While still in his youth, he played well e ...

Performance

As a member of the ''Beaux-Arts String Quartet'', Clapp won the first

Naumburg Chamber Music Award The Walter W. Naumburg Foundation sponsors competitions and provides awards for young classical musicians in North America. Founded in 1925, it operates the prestigious Naumburg Competition. Foundation and concerts It was founded in 1925 by Walt ...

. He won the

Josef Gingold Josef Gingold (; January 11, 1995) was a Russian-born American classical violinist and teacher who lived most of his life in the United States. At the time of his death he was considered one of the most influential violin masters in the United St ...

Prize of the Cleveland Society for Strings while a student at the

. Clapp was concertmaster of the

Aspen Chamber Symphony The Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) is a classical music festival held annually in Aspen, Colorado. It is noted both for its concert programming and the musical training it offers to mostly young-adult music students. Founded in 1949, th ...

Nashville Symphony The Nashville Symphony is an American symphony orchestra, based in Nashville, Tennessee. The orchestra is resident at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. History In 1920, prior to the 1946 founding of the Nashville Symphony, a group of amateur a ...

, and the

Austin Symphony Orchestra The Austin Symphony Orchestra is the oldest performing group in Austin, Texas, USA. It was founded in 1911. History The inaugural concert was held on April 25, 1911. Initially, the orchestra consisted of 28 unpaid members and an unpaid conductor. ...

. Clapp performed in numerous summer festivals in Europe and North America. He was a founding faculty member of Credo Chamber Music, at Oberlin Conservatory. He was first violinist in the Blair String Quartet from 1967-72. In 1982, Clapp was the founding violinist of the

Oberlin Trio The Oberlin Trio was founded in 1982 by three faculty members of the Oberlin Conservatory: Stephen Clapp, violin; Andor Toth Jr., cello; and Joseph Schwartz, piano. Now in its current configuration with pianist Haewon Song, violinist David Bowlin ...

, along with cellist

Andor Toth Jr. Andor Toth, Jr. (1948–2002) was an American cellist in the Central European, Berlin, and Hungarian traditions. Toth Jr. was the son of the violinist Andor Toth, with whom he collaborated in the Toth Duo and the New Hungarian Quartet. His teach ...

and pianist Joseph Schwartz. On April 28, 1985,

Tim Page (music critic) Tim Page (born Ellis Batten Page Jr., 11 October 1954) is an American writer, music critic, editor, producer and professor who won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for his music criticism for ''The Washington Post''. Anthony Tommasini, the chief music c ...

of the New York Times had this to say about Clapps's playing in a New York debut recital: "Mr. Clapp, who was ably accompanied by the pianist Frances Walker, plays sweetly and songfully, with innate taste; he produces a dark, affecting tone from his instrument, which sounded almost like a viola at times. . . . a vigorous interpretation, which it received Sunday."

Teaching

Clapp taught violin at a number of schools. *

Aspen Music Festival and School The Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) is a European classical music, classical music festival held annually in Aspen, Colorado. It is noted both for its concert programming and the musical training it offers to mostly young-adult music stud ...

, 1971–94 *

Peabody College Vanderbilt Peabody College of Education and Human Development (also known as Vanderbilt Peabody College, Peabody College, or simply Peabody) is the education school of Vanderbilt University, a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee ...

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and t ...

, TN), 1967–72 *

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

Austin, TX Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city i ...

, 1972–79 *

, 1978–90 *

The Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most elit ...

, 1987–2014 * Credo Music 1999-2013

Selected discography

Leon Kirchner Leon Kirchner (January 24, 1919 – September 17, 2009) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he won a Pulitzer ...

Piano Trio, performed by the

* 20th-century American Piano Trios * French Trios -

Maurice Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...

Jean Baptiste Loeillet of Ghent Jean Baptiste Loeillet (6 July 1688 – c. 1720), who later styled himself Loeillet de Gant, was a Flemish composer, born in Ghent. He spent the largest part of his life in France in service to the archbishop of Lyon, Paul-François de Neufville ...

Claude Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most infl ...

References

External links

Stephen Clapp, violin

Juilliard Biography

Official Biography, PDF file

Violinists who studied with Stephen Clapp

Stephen Clapp on "flickr" speaking at Ball State University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clapp, Stephen Violin pedagogues American classical violinists Male classical violinists American male violinists Aspen Music Festival and School faculty Concertmasters American music educators Oberlin Conservatory of Music alumni Juilliard School alumni 1939 births 2014 deaths Place of birth missing 20th-century classical violinists 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century American violinists