By TONI MARIE MARCHIONI

Dean Stephen Clapp with violin student Yoon-Jung Cho in April 2005. (Photo by Peter Schaaf)

Stephen Clapp, who steps down as The Juilliard School’s dean at the end of this academic year after 13 years in the position, first came to Juilliard in 1961 as a master’s degree student of the renowned violin teacher Dorothy DeLay, after receiving a bachelor’s degree from the Oberlin Conservatory. Upon earning his master’s in 1965, he pursued a successful career as a chamber musician (he is a founding member of the Oberlin Trio and a former member of the Beaux-Arts and Blair String Quartets), an orchestral player, and teacher (he taught violin at Oberlin from 1978-90) before returning to Juilliard in 1987 as a member of the violin faculty.

In 1991 he was appointed associate dean and director for performance activities, and assumed his current position as dean in 1994. Even while fulfilling his administrative duties, Dean Clapp, 67, has remained deeply committed to teaching and is still an active member of the violin faculty, in both the College and Pre-College Divisions. Juilliard will pay tribute to the dean at this month’s commencement ceremony by awarding him an honorary doctorate (Read the article).

A native of Tallman, N.Y., Clapp now lives in Greenwich, Conn., with his wife of 42 years, Linda. Recently he sat down with master’s degree candidate Toni Marie Marchioni to reflect upon his years as dean and his plans for the future.

Toni Marie Marchioni: What was Juilliard like when you assumed the position? Did you have any specific goals as the new dean?

Stephen Clapp: Well, I moved to the Dean’s Office without any premeditation. I have to say that, being a fiddle teacher all my life, I always mistrusted administrators. Then I finally found myself wearing that jacket! I wanted to encourage everyone in the orchestral and chamber music programs to see themselves as capable of a variety of things—and that all of those things had value. In my early years as dean, few string players considered a career in an orchestra as having any value at all. Many students would do anything just to get out of playing in orchestra. My goal at that point was to encourage people to view all of the opportunities out there as worthy of them, not just the solo ones.

When first in the office, I wanted to get acquainted with faculty members I didn’t already know. Since then, Joseph [Polisi] and I have built on the faculty’s strengths in the appointment of new faculty members to lead Juilliard into the future. Although faculty appointments have been limited to maybe three or four a year, this year that number has more than doubled. I have wanted to allow younger people who showed a lot of skill to have the status of Juilliard faculty, so that we didn’t have one stratum of masters and another stratum of assistants. I tried to avoid hiring faculty members who were farming out students to their assistants and not seeing them regularly.

But truly, my goals really were to attempt to implement President Polisi’s goals. He really is the conscience and the visionary in this place. I have so much admired his attitude and approach since my first year on the violin faculty in 1987 that it was very easy to flow right into trying to implement his ideas.

TMM: Have you seen a big change at Juilliard since your days as a student? Has it been a positive one?

SC: Huge. Huge. Absolutely positive. A change in attitude. A change in students caring for each other and having awareness of each other. And that really happened when the residence hall opened in 1990. Then also, there is the shift from people in the early years just trying to get out of orchestra to now seeing the orchestra as both a wonderful music-making opportunity and a career preparation.

TMM: What do you feel are your biggest achievements as dean?

SC: Again, I have to say that President Polisi’s goals have been my goals, so I really can’t claim any achievements. I guess, as I leave the office, I just hope that people view me as having been fair and approachable.

TMM: What happens after you leave your post? Will you be teaching full-time?

SC: I expect that probably I’ll be teaching three days a week here, but I don’t know exactly. Now I have about nine students in the College Division and six in the Pre-College. Maybe two or three more students would be plenty. I’m looking forward to it very much.

But what I really want is to find some little kids who aren’t yet ready for Pre-College but who can be formed. So much can be accomplished in the first couple of years that usually isn’t! Kids develop habits. They don’t learn to read music. There’s tension all over the place. Maybe this will be an experiment to see if having access to kids who have done one or two years of Suzuki and who are highly motivated enables me to help them become ready for Juilliard Pre-College, and have the tools that they need to keep growing.

Stephen Clapp in his student days, c. 1976, with the late violinist Isaac Stern. (Photo by Charles Abbott )

TMM: Do you have any other plans outside of music?

SC: I’ve always worn multiple hats. One is that I’m very active in my church. We’re in the process of a search for a new rector, so I’m on the search committee. I’m on the vestry, which is the church’s board of governors. As the search process accelerates, I will be more available to participate. And as a new rector arrives, I will be more available to help him or her get acquainted with who we are at St. John’s [Episcopal Church, in Stamford, Conn.]. The city is growing substantially, so I am eager for us to reach beyond our comfortable little walls, to bring hope and refreshment to the people in the city.

TMM: Is there anything in particular that you feel Juilliard should focus on in the School’s second century?

SC: I see Ara Guzelimian [who assumes the role of full-time provost and dean in July] as a fabulous choice for dean because of his connections with everyone—conductors, soloists, faculty, the world. I see him bringing the world to Juilliard! At this point, Juilliard kind of goes out to the world, but I see more and more Juilliard representing both the loftiest and the most grassroots of goals: bringing the joy of the arts to a society now hooked on electronics and music that is created for commercial gain rather than spiritual nurture. Getting the arts out there, bringing in new audiences, is the goal for all of us. It’s not new, but we’re more aware of it now in the past 10 years than we ever were before.

TMM: Do you feel you made many mistakes as dean?

SC: Lots and lots of mistakes. At first, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know what the job description was. Probably my biggest mistake was getting so absorbed in urgent details that I didn’t take care of the more important, larger issues. I suppose, if there’s any hazard to this job, it is the proliferation of e-mail communications that you have to respond to or else you’re considered a poor manager or impolite. I get 50 or 60 e-mails a day; if I don’t happen to get to them in the morning, then it’s 120 tomorrow and 180 the next day.

TMM: Did the introduction of e-mail at Juilliard transform your job?

SC: It’s been very gradual, but in the last two years I’ve realized how it’s dominated my time in the office. Otherwise, my job is so much participating in meetings; I think I had seven of them yesterday. That includes scholastic issues, financial issues, admissions issues. When I go from meeting to meeting, there’s no time to just sit at my desk and process everything. So that’s why my desk is such a mess!

TMM: Do you feel there is anything at Juilliard that needs improvement? If you could change any one thing, what would it be?

SC: I wish we could meet students’ full need, and give enough financial aid to everyone so they didn’t have to take out loans. I understand the loan burden. I know that some people have to take a job outside music just to keep up with the loans, and that leads them away from their potential as performing artists. Even if we couldn’t give people as much as they wanted, it would at least, I hope, keep students from having to take out loans.

TMM: Do you have any parting words for the students or faculty of Juilliard?

SC: We should never be so self-contained that we stop caring about other people.

TMM: What legacy you would like to leave behind as dean?

SC: Clean closets, and nobody having to mop up after me! If my mistakes can have been taken care of, so that Ara comes in with a clean slate—that would be very satisfying.

Toni Marie Marchioni, who earns her master’s degree in oboe this month, is the recipient of the 2007 Juilliard Journal Award.