Whatever happened to Mildred Dilling’s harps?

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This topic has 34 replies, 18 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 2 months ago by harperlm.

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February 7, 2011 at 9:16 pm #71928

Dwyn .
Participant

“The most bizarre experience of her professional life is when a very rich man paid her an unusually large sum to come to his home and play for him. When Mildred arrived, she realised that the man wanted her to serenade him while he made love to his girlfriend who had died. That is to say that he was engaging in necrophilia while being serenaded by the greatest harpist the modern world knows.”

Wow!

February 7, 2011 at 10:30 pm #71929

carl-swanson
Participant

Mildred tended to embellish stories or incidents. That’s just the way she was. So I wouldn’t take any of that literally.

February 8, 2011 at 3:32 am #71930

Saul Davis Zlatkovski
Participant

Oh, I had a few offers like that I didn’t pay attention to. I was invited to perform in a revue in Provincetown right after my summer at Tanglewood. I said no, thinking only of what Miss Lawrence would say. I found out the next day that I came very close to being drugged and kidnapped to P’town to do the same, to wake up onstage in costume in the show. That would have been a mistake.

February 8, 2011 at 3:56 am #71931

carl-swanson
Participant

I should mention here that Vanderbilt Music Company sells one or two CD’s of Mildred playing.

February 8, 2011 at 4:32 am #71932

Dwyn .
Participant

I’m sort of glad to hear that, since this particular story involved something that really warranted summoning police forthwith.

February 8, 2011 at 2:06 pm #71933

carl-swanson
Participant

That’s how Mildred went through life. I remember when I read her Christmas letter years ago, it was filled with little stories about her travels in which, in each incident, she swopped in and saved the situation. One I clearly remember was about a week long masterclass she was teaching in California. According to her, one of the students was a girl who had just gotten a job playing harp at a hotel in las Vegas, but who only knew three tunes. Mildred got to work on her and by the end of the week the girl knew 17 tunes. I would love to hear the girl’s version of that story.

February 8, 2011 at 3:42 pm #71934

catherine-rogers
Participant

Whatever else, Ms. Dilling certainly was an original!

February 11, 2011 at 5:07 pm #71935

Nancy Smith
Participant

So just to clarify, you think Brigham Young Univ. is the best place to send her Christmas letters, post cards, personal notes, and photographs?

February 11, 2011 at 5:09 pm #71936

Nancy Smith
Participant

Is there a particular time period.

February 11, 2011 at 5:57 pm #71937

barbara-brundage
Participant

Yes, I mean here:

http://lib.byu.edu/sites/harp/

March 13, 2011 at 1:55 am #71938

susan-page-howland
Participant

Wow, I know

March 13, 2011 at 3:21 am #71939

mark-andersen
Participant

The girl in the boat at the Dunes was Kippy Lou Scott. Kippy is still a member of our Greater Seattle Chapter.

March 13, 2011 at 3:01 am #71940

susan-page-howland
Participant

Amazing…the name doesn’t sound familiar, but it was 45 years ago. If she was in Mildred’s masterclass the summer of 1966 and remembers driving 2 teenagers from Hidden Hills to UCLA for the week I have

March 13, 2011 at 3:02 am #71941

Dorian Llywelyn
Participant

Readers might be interested in this ad:

http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/msg/2234545182.html

March 13, 2011 at 3:47 am #71942

mark-andersen
Participant

Her name would have been Kippy Lou Brinkman at that time.
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