Dorothy DeLay
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Dorothy DeLay (March 31, 1917 – March 24, 2002) was an American violin instructor at the Juilliard School and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
Born in Medicine Lodge, Kansas
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[edit] Career and education
In addition to teaching at Juilliard, she taught at Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, and the New England Conservatory, among others. She was an assistant to the greatest violin teacher of later 20th century, Ivan Galamian, but later established her own violin studio. Delay attended the Oberlin Conservatory and Michigan State University, where she received her B.A. She went on to earn an Artist Diploma from Juilliard Graduate School.
She was also the founder of the Stuyvesant Trio (1939-42).
Dorothy DeLay died from cancer in New York City at the age of 85.[1]
In addition to many honorary degrees, Miss DeLay received the National Medal of Arts in 1994, the National Music Council's American Eagle Award in 1995, the Sanford Medal from Yale University in 1997 and the Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Japanese Government in 1998.[2]
[edit] Teaching
Her former students include violinists of the late 20th century. She assisted Galamian for violinists Itzhak Perlman and Kyung-Wha Chung. She also taught Anne Akiko Meyers, Midori Goto, Sarah Chang, Cho-Liang Lin, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Nigel Kennedy, Shlomo Mintz, and Gil Shaham, among others. She also taught many significant orchestral musicians and pedagogues, such as Simon Fischer, author of Basics, Chicago Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Robert Chen, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (also doubling in the Seattle Symphony) concertmaster Frank Almond, and Philadelphia Orchestra Concertmaster David Kim.
In a 1992 interview, Salerno-Sonnenberg said: "I think the greatest things about Dorothy DeLay is that she has the ability to look at a young student or an old student and pretty much size up their character and the way that they think -- their personality, basically -- and how in a short period of time what's the best door to use to get them into here. And that's her method -- that fact that there is really no method."[3]
Itzhak Perlman said of DeLay's pedagogic approach: "I would come and play for her, and if something was not quite right, it wasn't like she was going to kill me. She would ask questions about what you thought of particular phrases -- where the top of the phrase was, and so on. We would have a very friendly, interesting discussion about 'Why do you think it should sound like this?' and 'What do you think of that?' I was not quite used to this way of approaching things."[4]
DeLay's students have gone forward to solo careers, principal orchestra positions with the world's leading orchestras, and have gone on to win a majority of all the major violin competitions of the world.
In 1975, she was recognized by ASTA with their Artist Teacher Award. She founded the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation.
[edit] References
- Sand, Barbara Lourie. Teaching Genius: Dorothy DeLay and the Making of a Musician. New York, Amadeus Press, 2000. ISBN 1-57467-120-0 --link to publisher's web page
