Clark Family Names Musicians' Storage Room

Date: June 2, 2008

Author: Kauffman Center

Ginny and Charles Clark started attending Friends of Chamber Music performances in private homes, the Lyric Opera at the Rockhill Theater and followed the Philharmonic and the Symphony through several halls.  The Clarks are long-time, consistent audience members at most of the instrumental and choral music series in town.  “Our interest in the Kauffman Center,” Charles explains, “comes from our desire to hear musicians perform in settings equal to their talents.”  The Clarks made a gift to the Kauffman Center and will name the Musicians’ Storage Room. 

Ginny grew up in Upstate New York and her first musical memory is a concert at Tanglewood when she was five.  “With the trio of Tanglewood, Saratoga and Marlborough nearby, we had access to lots of great music,” Ginny says.  She is told that, as a child, she used to rock her high chair to music. “My mother believed that music education was critical to brain development in children.  While my father was an engineer by training, he was an accomplished amateur violinist.  So together they turned me into a pianist who could change my father’s string quartet into a quintet at a moment’s notice.”

Charles admits to being a mere “fellow traveler” in music, but their children have carried on Ginny’s musical tradition.  Their daughter, a flutist, is Academic Dean at the Boston Arts Academy and their son sang with the Harvard Glee Club. Two young grandsons in Boston are studying piano and a four-year-old granddaughter in Kansas City just began violin lessons.  Putting their names on the Musicians’ Storage Room seems logical, they say, as they have first-hand experience in the care of instruments and know how important it is to musicians. 

The Clarks also incorporate music performances into their travels.  “We have heard symphonies and operas performed in great settings in Chicago, New York and Europe,” Charles explains, “and learned first-hand how important venue is to the sound and the experience.” 

While the Clarks generally prefer to make donations for programs rather than buildings, they felt that it was important to support the Kauffman Center capital campaign.  Ginny explained, “Kansas City really needs better performance spaces.  We are not so interested in the building itself.  It’s having the halls—the actual performance spaces—that’s important to us.”

Charles agrees, “I grew up in Kansas City, but went away to school.  Since moving back in 1965, we’ve watched arts groups in the city grow tremendously, but some of the places where they perform are not on a par with their skills.” 

They use as an example the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, acclaimed for its exquisite acoustics.  After George Szell directed the Cleveland Orchestra in this small, acoustically excellent hall in Ginny’s hometown, Troy, New York, Szell said he had not really heard his orchestra play until it played there.  Ginny summed it all up, “We want that experience for Kansas City musicians and audiences.”

Read more stories about donors and their gifts to the Kauffman Center.