Filed under: Personal
Published Monday, Nov. 3, 1933 in TIME:
“…Louis Persinger, who taught Yehudi Menuhin and Ruggiero Ricci, has a violin pupil who created an unusual stir this week.
Gloria Perkins, 10, whose mother is a church organist in Queens Village, Long Island, and whose father, Clemmett Birdsong Perkins, is Eastern Passenger Agent for the Norfolk & Western Railway Co., played the Mendelssohn Concerto with the National Symphony in Washington. Gloria is a wispy little girl who wears big hair ribbons and oily black corkscrew curls. She took so long to tune her violin that the audience started to titter. But the feeling rapidly changed as the Concerto got under way. Gloria was not only technically expert but her playing had a simple persuasive quality that touched the audience deeply. Father and Mother Perkins are making a pianist of their son, Clemmett Birdsong Perkins Jr., 3.”
Here is the photo published of her: http://www.shorpy.com/node/7013
Ms. Perkins was my violin teacher. Taking this picture for me was very personal and overwhelming all at once. I decided to visit her while in New York last weekend and was surprised to my delight she is still the same quitessential teacher who lights up a room. Still passionate about her first love. She is 88 years old and still plays the violin and is exactly the way I remembered her while growing up. She wouldn’t let me leave without sifting through her music to give me a piece after I had mentioned to her that I picked the violin back up after college. And she still teaches! (and plays publicly occasionally). The last time I saw her was probably in junior high school, maybe high school. I didn’t know it at the time but she was a big part of my childhood and left quite an impression on my family and I.
All the subtle nuances of her character I remember as a child came flooding back. The way she kept her hair, talked excitedly about a new fashionable coat she found for a bargain and being able to take you with her in all of her detailed stories. Some details of my own events pursuing competitions or recitals I even forgot but she could still recall. I shot several frames and let her sit where she’s taught many students at the piano. Everything was exactly the way I remembered it. The picture of her younger self is still sitting on a boudoir in her piano room.
I remember on some days walking to her house for a lesson, sometimes dreading a lesson because I didn’t practice. I think my mom paid about $13 for a weekly lesson. On good days, we would practice together on her front porch and she would refuse the money. I remember her two dogs licking my face after I had a fainting spell one lesson, crying during some lessons (I’m embarassed to admit) because I was an incredibly shy, spineless kid. And her finches that she had in her upstairs bedroom that would chatter and chirp. Then one day she let me go as a student. It was about junior high school where I think I had totally lost interest. After taking lessons since I was 5 or 6, I was tired of it. I couldn’t even remember if this was something that I wanted to do or something that my parents had put upon me. I saw it coming a mile away yet it felt so sudden. But it’s taken me this long to realize the beauty of the gift that she gave me. The priceless gift of music and bringing song into a room and feeling that connection between the instrument and yourself. And I’m 99% sure I’m not as technically great as I once used to be but the measure of satisfaction I receive when playing, is priceless.
An amazing woman. I wish I could live in NY just to visit her and take lessons from her again.
