89-year-old violinist still sharing skills

By RICK ROUAN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

BOARDMAN — Kathryn Walker has never stopped teaching.

The 89-year-old violinist, who played in the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra for more than 20 years, gave her first lesson when she was 12 and living in Flora, Ind. Her student was 10, and Walker was the only person in town who played the violin, making her the natural choice for a teacher.

“I love to see how they progress and how they feel about music,” said Walker from her apartment in Glenellen Senior Living in Boardman.

“I feel lost if I’m not teaching,” she said.

Over the last 40 years, Walker said she has taught more than 1,800 music students in Boardman alone. Her schedule today isn’t as dense as it once was; each week, Walker brings in five or six students, many of them Boardman High School orchestra members. That’s down from up to 40 or 50 students a week in her prime, she said.

“It tapers down after a while,” she said.

Walker comes from “a musical family.” Her late husband, Mark F. Walker, was a composer and directed the music theory department at Youngstown State University’s Dana School of Music for several years beginning in 1968.

“He composed music for my family to play,” she said. “He wrote everything we played.”

All three of her daughters play and teach, and all but one of her grandchildren play a stringed instrument.

Walker’s granddaughter recently earned a doctorate from The Julliard School, an elite music program in New York, and played a recital at Carnegie Hall.

The family’s musical roots can be traced back to Walker’s grandparents, who met in singing school in the late 1800s. Walker said her grandparents studied under George F. Root, a famous Civil War songwriter.

Both of Walker’s parents were singers, and she attended the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music, where she met her husband.

“We married musicians. The kids got ... double music,” she said. “Our family is pretty unique. They’re all top players. I don’t have a dud in the group.”

When her family gets together, they all bring their instruments, Walker said. She’s fond of showing a family photo from her 75th birthday that includes all her family with their instruments.

“When you would come in our house, all our music stands are set up,” she said. “We play and play and play.”

The family has catalogued all of Mark’s compositions, which total more than 500, Walker said.

At Glenellen, sheet music is stored in almost every crack and crevice of Walker’s space. She has a large, four-drawer filing cabinet full of sheet music. Folders of music line Walker’s closet floor. Even the bench to her Story & Clark piano, which now sits in a common area of the retirement home, is filled with sheet music.

That common area is where Walker gives her lessons. On Friday, Pat Strasik, a junior at Boardman High School, was preparing with Walker for a solo and ensemble contest.

“Mrs. Walker is one of my favorite people,” Strasik said. “She’s like a second parent sometimes.”

Strasik has been practicing with Walker since the seventh grade.

Walker said that Boardman students have a great advantage in having an orchestra.

“If you give them an orchestra to play in, that’s just great,” she said, noting that credit should be given to the school’s instructors and the students’ parents.

Frank Dispenza, Boardman’s orchestra director, said that Walker is on a list of private instructors he gives to new violin players.

“I always called her the dean of violin teachers because she’s been doing it so long,” Dispenza said. “She’s been teaching here since the very, very early days of this program.”

Walker recalled going to auctions to find instruments for students to rent in the high school orchestra’s early days. The program has been built up by committed administrators, instructors and parents over the years, though, she said.

“She’s very enthusiastic about playing. She has the kind of personality that kids get attracted to,” Dispenza said. “She’s a fantastic musician.”

Walker has played in several symphonies. In Ohio, she spent 22 years in the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra, 14 years in the Warren Chamber Orchestra and eight years in the Columbus symphony.

Today, Walker plays with a group of ex-symphony musicians who call themselves “The Chamber Players” between lessons with her six students.

“Given the knowledge I have, I try to bring it out in them,” Walker said. “By learning to play, they become cultured. ... I like to see them enjoy what they’re doing.”

rrouan@vindy.com