• Study here
    • Study here
    • Undergraduates
    • Graduates
    • Visiting students
    • Outreach with schools and colleges
  • Living here
    • Living here
    • Where you will live
    • Eating here
    • Library & resources
    • Chapel & faith
    • Do what you love
    • Help is on hand
  • Our people
  • News, events and more
    • News, events and more
    • Our vision for 2030
    • News
    • Events
    • Hertford history
    • Rare books & Archives
    • International Programmes
    • Conferences & events
    • Governance & legal
    • Vacancies
    • Visit us
    • Contact us
  • Hertford Intranet
  • International Programmes
    • International Programmes
    • Directors’ welcome
    • Our programmes
    • Our partnerships
    • Life in Oxford
    • Hertford in Asia
    • How to apply
  • Alumni
    • Alumni
    • Hertford today
    • Meet the Hertfordians
    • Publications
    • Alumni societies
    • Alumni FAQs
    • Update your details
    • Meet the Development team
  • Support us
    • Support us
    • Give to Hertford
    • Fundraising priorities
    • Leave a legacy
    • For donors
  • Contact us
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
  • Hertford Intranet
  • International Programmes
    • International Programmes
    • Directors’ welcome
    • Our programmes
    • Our partnerships
    • Life in Oxford
    • Hertford in Asia
    • How to apply
  • Alumni
    • Alumni
    • Hertford today
    • Meet the Hertfordians
    • Publications
    • Alumni societies
    • Alumni FAQs
    • Update your details
    • Meet the Development team
  • Support us
    • Support us
    • Give to Hertford
    • Fundraising priorities
    • Leave a legacy
    • For donors
  • Contact us
  • Study here
  • Living here
  • Our people
  • News, events and more

Study here  ›

  • Undergraduates
  • Graduates
  • Visiting students
  • Outreach with schools and colleges

Living here  ›

  • Where you will live
  • Eating here
  • Library & resources
  • Chapel & faith
  • Do what you love
  • Help is on hand

News, events and more  ›

  • Our vision for 2030
  • News
  • Events
  • Hertford history
  • Rare books & Archives
  • International Programmes
  • Conferences & events
  • Governance & legal
  • Vacancies
  • Visit us
  • Contact us
Home / Alumni / Publications / Hertford Blog / Pianos for Hertford

Pianos for Hertford

Julian Clarke (Mathematics, 1967)

We all know that Hertford is a friendly college, from the Principal to the Pussycat, and in between there’s the Development Office too. When the charming girl there asked me to write something about myself and donating I could hardly refuse entirely.

I’m afraid I did everything and nothing at Hertford, being amongst other things captain of the college hockey, chess and bridge teams without being able to concentrate on anything. My most important activity proved to be keeping my hand(s) in on the piano in the Chapel. I had been a pupil of a senior professor of the Royal Academy of Music, who taught me as a hobby on Sundays, and having learnt that I wasn’t destined to be a mathematician I proceeded to play the piano for a living and have done that based in Stuttgart (SW. Germany) for the last 45 years. Accompanying, chamber music and lecture-recitals were my lines, as I couldn’t possibly compete technically with the wizards from the Master Classes. (After a lecture-recital in Austria someone said to me, “We have a Russian here who always gives us a first run of any new programme. You know, technically she can tuck you into her pocket with one hand, but of course musically you are much more worthwhile.”)

There have inevitably been better and worse moments in all the years; it wasn’t wonderful in the Triplex Centre in Manhattan when the massive ventilation, which was still running after the interval, blew my accompaniment off the stand into the blue yonder, but nothing can compare with the day when the Steinway grand piano fell through the stage floor-boards in the Casa Beethoven in Cali, Colombia.

Musicologically I am in the Mozart Studien Vol. 21, 2012 and the Mozart-Jahrbuch 2013 (in German, of course). It’s rather typical (though not 100% my fault) that I have since then been struggling to finish two different larger pieces at the same time. Nil desperandum…

Up till now I have concentrated my donations to the college on pianos for the students to play, as the availability of a real instrument in College was so important to me. But times and needs have changed, and at the moment I leave it to the delightful people in the Office to decide what may be most important for the present and future students. All the best to them!

 

Alumni

  • Hertford today
    • Hertford Virtual Events
      • COVID-19 rapid testing technology
      • Global supply chains after Covid
      • The software that led to the lockdown
      • Risk management during a global pandemic
      • Think and Act Big! How to navigate through the pandemic
    • Introducing Hertford
    • Hertford statistics
    • John Donne Lectures
      • Susie Orbach (2020)
      • Mary Beard (2019)
      • Nick Clegg (2018)
      • Mark Thompson (2017)
      • Frances O’Grady (2016)
      • Shami Chakrabarti (2015)
      • Tony Hall (2014)
      • Gus O’Donnell (2013)
      • Mary Robinson (2012)
      • Toby Barnard (2010)
    • Neil Tanner and the Tanner Scheme
      • The Tanner Scheme
      • Tanner Day
      • Recollections of the Tanner scheme
      • The Tanner Research Project
    • The Simpkin Dynasty
      • Simpkin
      • Simpkins (Simpkin II)
      • Simpkin III
      • Simpkin IV
  • Meet the Hertfordians
    • HertNet
    • HertFolk
    • Co-education
    • 50 years of access
  • Publications
    • Hertford College Magazine
    • The Bridge
    • Hertford College Donor Report
    • Hertford College E-News
    • Hertford Blog
      • Photography takes flight
      • Who wants to be a politician?
      • Money, money, money
      • Hertford in the time of Corona
      • A Hertford Chemist in Lockdown
      • New rules – the Corona Sashay
      • EnglishLit to LockdownLit in 2020
      • Lawyer in the Loop
      • Isolation in the face of disease past and present
      • H is for Hawk
      • Floating in Pre-Lockdown Copenhagen
      • Mentoring opens doors to Oxbridge
      • Running to cope with PTSD
      • Challenger banks rally to meet the coronavirus call
      • Being an Olympian with no Olympics
      • The Truth About the Housing Crisis
      • Rethinking Plastics
      • Donating my hair to find a cure
      • Life in the E Fast Lane
      • What can new digital currencies learn from COVID track & trace?
      • Doctors Made Invisible
      • Why I’ll Be Embracing Failure in 2021
      • Pianos for Hertford
      • Reaching out in lockdown
      • Fostering inclusion and diversity
  • Alumni societies
    • The Hertford Society
  • Alumni FAQs
  • Update your details
  • Meet the Development team

Study here

  • Undergraduates
  • Graduates
  • Visiting students
  • Outreach with schools and colleges

Living here

  • Where you will live
  • Eating here
  • Library & resources
  • Chapel & faith
  • Do what you love
  • Help is on hand

Our people

  • Our people

News, events and more

  • Our vision for 2030
  • News
  • Events
  • Hertford history
  • Rare books & Archives
  • International Programmes
  • Conferences & events
  • Governance & legal
  • Vacancies
  • Visit us
  • Contact us

Follow us

Hertford College
Catte Street
Oxford
OX1 3BW


Tel: +44 (0)1865 279 400

© 2023 Hertford College Registered Charity No. 1137527

  • Contact us
  • Privacy
  • Legal

Site by Franks and Franks