Teaching Genius by Barbara Lourie Sand

Author:Barbara Lourie Sand
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781574673760
Publisher: Amadeus
Published: 2013-12-05T16:00:00+00:00

Many months and many classes after that early diary entry, I realized that the answers to some of these questions were not so simple. Yes, as students at the Juilliard School, the children who DeLay teaches are, for the most part, extremely gifted. No, the stars are not the only ones she teaches—they are the only ones the public hears about, and their numbers are extremely limited since there is not a huge market for solo violinists at present. While all DeLay’s students are required to have a high level of technical ability before being accepted into her studio, even they can have basic problems from time to time. I have been present at lessons where DeLay has had to teach a student how to count a measure, or how to check that he or she is playing on pitch. I have heard her criticized for putting in valuable time with a student clearly not destined for a big career, at the expense of another who seems more promising. One ex-student, a concert artist, told me that he couldn’t understand why DeLay wastes her energy with those who obviously aren’t going to make it, by which he meant have a solo career.

Whether one wants to call it favoritism, a pecking order, or a matter of practical judgment, there is no question that not all students are treated equally. DeLay has poured more of her prodigious energy into that handful of students who will be taking center stage in Carnegie Hall and elsewhere. These pupils have had more frequent lessons with her in addition to those they took with her associates. They have studied with her not only at her studio in Juilliard but also at her home in Nyack. They are the ones in whom she has taken a greater personal interest and whose careers she has helped to foster through introductions to iofluen-tial people in the music world, including managers and conductors. The students who rise to the top of the professional music world get there through a process of natural selection that comprises exceptional talent, imagination, concentration, hard work, luck, and connections. Of these attributes, DeLay can foster the first, and help with the last.

An oft-repeated story about DeLay and her overabundance of students was told to me by Robert Harth of the Aspen Music School, who had heard it from his father, the violinist Sidney Harth, whose name has somehow become linked with the tale. The younger Harth describes it as “probably an urban myth.” A student with a violin case gets on a plane and passes by DeLay’s seat. “Oh, sweetie,” she says, “You study violin. How interesting. Who is your teacher?” The student, looking uncomfortable and perplexed, replies, “You, Miss DeLay.”

One may certainly argue that DeLay has taken too many students. At the time I was following her, she had ultimate responsibility for approximately 160 pupils, whom she shared with a group of distinguished associates. Chief among these at Juilliard were Professors Hyo Kang and Masao Kawasaki and the concert artist Cho-Liang (“Jimmy”) Lin.

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