Katharine Kemp Stillings (June 30, 1888 – April 30, 1967) was a violinist, composer, and music educator.

Early life

Katharine Kemp Stillings was born in

Roxbury, Massachusetts Roxbury () is a Neighborhoods in Boston, neighborhood within the City of Boston, Massachusetts. Roxbury is a Municipal annexation in the United States, dissolved municipality and one of 23 official neighborhoods of Boston used by the city for n ...

, and began studying violin from a very early age. She went to Berlin to study with

Joseph Joachim Joseph Joachim (28 June 1831 – 15 August 1907) was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher who made an international career, based in Hanover and Berlin. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of ...

, and to

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

for further studies with

Leopold Auer Leopold von Auer ( hu, Auer Lipót; June 7, 1845July 15, 1930) was a Hungarian violinist, academic, conductor, composer, and instructor. Many of his students went on to become prominent concert performers and teachers. Early life and career Au ...

Career

Stillings performed in Russia and Finland before World War I. She played with pianist Frances Nash in 1917 and 1918, in New York and several other American cities, and was a guest soloist with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The orchestra performs primarily at the Bradley Symphony Center in Allen-Bradley Hall. The orchestra also serves as the orchestra for Florentine ...

. She toured in South America in 1920. Stillings became suddenly blind in the 1920s, and after that focused on teaching. "It has been a handicap, but also a blessing," she told an interviewer in 1940. "It has made my critical hearing ever so much more acute. Besides, something like this makes us so human." She was on the faculty at the

New Jersey College for Women Douglass Residential College, is an undergraduate, non degree granting higher education program of Rutgers University-New Brunswick for women. It succeeded the liberal arts degree-granting Douglass College after it was merged with the other unde ...

from 1927 to 1952, and taught her own master classes in New York City, which were modeled on the pedagogy of Joachim and Auer. Her students included conductor Walter Eisenberg. Stillings published violin exercise books for children, ''The Great Adventure'' (1928), ''At the Crossroads'' (1929), and ''The Giant Talks'' (1929), and wrote compositions with titles like "Take a Little Eighth Note", "Tick Tock", and "Double Meaning". She also took an interest in cookery, sharing recipes for fruit dishes with a newspaper in 1940.

Personal life

Kemp Stillings died in 1967, at her home in New York City."Kemp Stillings, 78, Violinist, Teacher"
''The New York Times'' (May 2, 1967): 47.

References

External links

* Cora Cooper
"Kemp Stillings: The Most Famous Violin Teacher You've Never Heard Of"
(May 27, 2012) an
"Kemp Stillings: Part 2"
(June 7, 2012)
"Kemp Stillings: The Finale!"
(July 17, 2012), an
"Update on Kemp Stillings Article"
(August 14, 2012), at ''Violin Music by Women: A Graded Anthology'' . Four blog posts about Stillings. {{DEFAULTSORT:Stillings, Kemp 1888 births 1967 deaths American violinists Women classical violinists People from Roxbury, Boston Rutgers University faculty Blind musicians American blind people American musicians with disabilities