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Dorothy DeLay | |
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| Background information | |
| Born | (1917-03-31)March 31, 1917 Medicine Lodge, Kansas, U.S. |
| Died | March 24, 2002(2002-03-24) (aged 84) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Genres | Classical |
| Occupation | Violin teacher |
| Instrument | Violin |
| Years active | 1937–2002 |
Dorothy DeLay (March 31, 1917 – March 24, 2002) was an Americanviolininstructor, primarily at theJuilliard School,Sarah Lawrence College, and theUniversity of Cincinnati.[1]
Dorothy DeLay was born on March 31, 1917, inMedicine Lodge, Kansas to parents who were musicians and teachers.[2][3] She began studying violin at age 4. At age 14, she graduated fromNeodesha High School, where her father was superintendent. DeLay studied for one year at theOberlin Conservatory with Raymond Cerf, a student ofCésar Thomson, and transferred to broaden her education atMichigan State University, where she earned a B.A. in 1937 at age 20. She then entered the Juilliard Graduate School, where she studied withLouis Persinger, Hans Letz, andFelix Salmond.
She was the founder of the Stuyvesant Trio (1939–42) with her cellist sister Nellis DeLay and pianist Helen Brainard, and she played withLeopold Stokowski's All-American Youth Orchestra.[3] While touring with this orchestra in 1940, she metEdward Newhouse, a novelist and writer for The New Yorker, and they married four months later in 1941. They had a son, Jeffrey Newhouse and a daughter Alison Newhouse Dinsmore.
In addition to many honorary degrees, Miss DeLay received theNational Medal of Arts in 1994, theNational Music Council'sAmerican Eagle Award in 1995, theSanford Medal fromYale University in 1997 and theOrder of the Sacred Treasure from the Japanese Government in 1998.[4]In 1975, she was recognized by theAmerican String Teachers Association (ASTA) with their Artist Teacher Award.
Dorothy DeLay died fromcancer in New York City at age 84.[3][5]
By the mid-1940s, DeLay decided that she did not want to continue as a performer. In 1946, she returned to Juilliard to study withIvan Galamian,becoming his assistant in 1948. In addition to teaching at Juilliard, she taught atSarah Lawrence College (1947–1987), theUniversity of Cincinnati – College-Conservatory of Music (30 years until 2001[6]), theNew England Conservatory, theMeadowmount School of Music and theAspen Music Festival and School, among others. DeLay's students have gone forward to solo careers, principal orchestra positions with the world's leading orchestras, and have gone on to win many of the major violin competitions of the world.
In a 1992 interview,Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg said: "I think the greatest thing 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 — the fact that there is really no method."[7]
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."[7]
In 1997, the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair of Violin Studies was established with a leadership grant from the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation to The Campaign for Juilliard. It was held by DeLay until the time of her death in March 2002, and a year later Itzhak Perlman was appointed to this position at Juilliard.
For an in-depth profile of Miss DeLay, see Helen Epstein's bookMusic Talks, now on Kindle. This is also available as a separate article on Kindle.[promotion?]
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