PLAYING BY HER OWN RULES

Clover the Violinist puts a jazzy, modern spin on her classic instruments ›

Clover is just as likely to be seen playing a wedding on a Swiss Avenue lawn as an Erykah Badu cover on TikTok.

Clover, who goes by “just Clover, or Clover the Violinist,” almost quit the violin altogether at 18. Years at an elite music school and a rigorous practice and competition schedule led to burnout, says the East Dallas resident born Gabrielle Clover.

Today her classic-meets-contemporary vibe is in demand around town and abroad. Fans flock to YouTube and TikTok to hear her violin covers of Chris Brown, Kid Cudi or Lil Nas X tracks. Neighbors might catch her playing a spring wedding on a Swiss Avenue lawn or a fundraiser at the Dallas Arboretum.

Now a full-time working musician, Clover the Violinist’s first EP is due to drop this summer. She spoke with the Advocate about irons in the fire and how she rekindled her love for playing music by making it her own.

IN SOME OF YOUR POSTED VIDEOS, YOU HAVE NAMES FOR YOUR INSTRUMENTS. CAN YOU INTRODUCE US?

I feel like every instrument has a different personality. Naming them helps me to connect with each instrument that I play. The main instrument that I use in most of my videos is this abstract-looking brown wooden electric violin. Her name is Dulce, like dulce de leche. She has a sweet sound and a caramel color. And I got a new carbon-fiber instrument that looks really cool, all black, decked out. I’m still trying to figure out a name for that one, trying to learn its personality and texture. It’ll come to me.

HOW MANY INSTRUMENTS DO YOU PLAY?

Mainly the piano and the violin. I did choir and percussion when I was young and was one of the first female snare drummers in my high school drum line. I’ve been dabbling lately in music production, so I’m playing with different sounds on the electronic side.

WHERE WAS HIGH SCHOOL?

I had a music scholarship to play the violin at a well-known prep school in Florida called North Broward Preparatory School. I joined their orchestra, and that was a really cool experience and an opportunity to get a great education.

WHY DIDN’T YOU DO A MUSIC PROGRAM IN COLLEGE?

Growing up, I took private lessons with a really great, and intense, instructor in Florida. Everything was fundamental classic. I loved it, and I am so thankful for it, but by age 18, I think I was burned out. It was a lot — half my high school classes were music, I was competing and rehearsing, and I was hard on myself. My inner critic told me it was not realistic for me to sustain those rigors and live as a full-time musician. Anyway, I decided to study psychology at Fordham University in The Bronx, New York, and I took a long break during that time from music. Every six or eight months I would pick up the violin, play around a little bit, then put it back. Maybe it was something I would do as a hobby. I struggled with that confidence factor.

WHAT REIGNITED YOUR PASSION FOR PLAYING MUSIC?

At 25, I had moved to Dallas and was doing paralegal work, but I was feeling dissatisfied. The 9-5 lifestyle did not feel very me. I started thinking about what brings me joy. I took up my violin and started playing around with it again, thinking it might be cool to play my favorite songs instead of just continuing to play classical. That is when I started playing by ear. At first it would take me maybe three weeks to learn a single song, and now I’ll pick it up right away — repetition and practice.

WHO INSPIRES YOU?

One of my favorites is Regina Carter. She plays jazz violin. Hearing someone play that style sparked my interest in wanting to do something similar. Another is Stéphane Grappelli. He’s old school, but he was one of the pioneers of that jazz violin wave.

R&B is my favorite genre to play. One of my most-covered artists is Chris Brown. I really enjoy playing Daniel Caesar. I also like to go old school with the neo soul like Soulchild or Erykah Badu.

ARE YOU FULLY MAKING YOUR LIVING WITH MUSIC NOW?

This is in my first year of being a full-time musician. I never saw myself actually doing this, but here I am. Before this, I was an orchestra director for middle and high school students at a Dallas charter school, and I thought that I was going to go the teaching route.

SPEAKING OF TEACHING, WHY DO YOU THINK IT’S IMPORTANT FOR KIDS TO HAVE MUSIC EDUCATION?

I liked to tell my students music is like learning another language. There is structure within it, especially if you learn the classical route, but I tried to show my students there’s more than one way to play an instrument. They can take what I teach but still be creative and turn it into something that suits them, something they love. And I think they like having that creative outlet in the middle of the day.

WHAT DO THE DAYS OF A FULL-TIME VIOLINIST LOOK LIKE?

I’ve been doing quite a few private events — anniversaries, birthdays, engagements at homes — I really like private events, like playing weddings. I think a lot of brides enjoy the idea of my playing her favorite song as she’s walking down the aisle. I get comparisons to Bridgerton Brides seem to like that vibe.

WILL YOU REMAIN IN DALLAS?

That’s the big question. I’ve been in Dallas for seven years. Just since this year started, I’ve seen huge opportunities come up for me. I’ve worked with Dallas City Hall, Dallas Arboretum, the African American Museum. Dallas has shown me so much love and allowed my music side to blossom. But, also, having had an opportunity to travel — like playing resorts in Mexico, things like that — I am thinking more about splitting time.

WHERE DO YOU LIKE TO HANG IN DALLAS?

For music, I love Revelers Hall in Bishop Arts. I love The Free Man and wandering around Deep Ellum. I like the culture there.

WHAT’S NEXT?

I’ll release my first EP by early summer. Finally I’ll be getting my own creations and content out there for streaming and downloading. It’ll include some of my popular covers and a couple original singles. That’s one thing I’m most excited about.

Story by RENEE UMSTED

A 110-bed hospital would be built as an addition to the Doctor’s Medical Center on Garland Road, the president of the White Rock Chamber of Commerce announced. The cost was estimated to be $1 million. When completed, the hospital would offer medical and surgical services, outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment, a communications system, air conditioning and a parking lot to accommodate 200 vehicles.

What exists today is a 218-bed medical center near the intersection of Garland Road and N. Buckner Boulevard operated by California-based Pipeline Health. Inside the ground-floor lobby, the hospital displays certificates marking its 50th anniversary, celebrated in 2009, along with a plaque representing the patent presented in 1993 to Paul J. Durfee, a cardiac catheter technician at Doctors Hospital, for the Durfee Catheter.

Many East Dallas neighbors have stories to tell about the facility now named White Rock Medical Center. More difficult to explain is how a small, independent hospital functions in a city with plentiful medical resources, including the most-awarded not-for-profit health system in Texas, the top scientific health care research institution and the No. 10 hospital system in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report, Nature Index and The Lown Institute, respectively.

The Doctors years

Over the years, the facility has been under different ownership and names, but it began in 1959 as Doctors Hospital, a nonprofit.

It transitioned to a for-profit hospital in early 1984, when National Medical Enterprises bought it, says Gene Ward, who began working at the hospital as the director of finance in 1967. NME acquired American Medical International in 1995, and the company’s name became Tenet Healthcare.

“One of the strengths of Doctors Hospital, always a strength in my opinion, was that the original members of the medical staff, they were good doctors,” Ward says. “They were very ethical folks.”

Around 1971, the hospital began searching for a new location, Ward says. Hospital leaders decided on a nearby property, went through the rezoning process and began construction in 1975. Also around that time, Ward’s work focused on the development, and his former responsibilities were delegated to a new director of finance.

East Dallas resident Carolyn Farmer started working at the hospital in 1979 as a nurse in the emergency department. Less than two years later, she was promoted to night house supervisor, and during her 37 years at the hospital, she was also the day house supervisor and supervisor of the day surgery department.

“It felt like a family,” Farmer says. “There were a lot of us that stayed there for a very long time.”

When issues arose, it usually had to do with leaders and employees having different styles, ideas and personalities, Farmer says, but that could be said of any working environment.

Farmer has also been a patient at Doctors Hospital, where she had knee surgery and received great care, she says. Her sense of the hospital’s reputation during the time she worked there was generally favorable; she says she didn’t hear many bad reports or rumors.

But other patients describe different experiences.

About 40 years ago, East Dallas resident Kathy Powers was riding her bike around White Rock Lake. She had an accident, went over the handlebars and landed on her head. A police officer took her to the hospital, but Powers says a football player with a broken pinky finger was seen before she was. She says she still has a bump on her head.

Adrianne Allen took her daughter to the hospital about 15 years ago, having trouble getting the fever to drop. There were two or three others in the waiting room, and Allen says she waited at least seven hours before her daughter was seen. Inside the patient room, she saw blood and chunks of hair, she says, but the staff declined to transfer them to another. Her daughter was eventually given some antibiotics, and they left after about 10 hours.

Lucy Fulls was a recruiter at the hospital for a year, starting in 2013, and was responsible for hiring clinical staff. At the time, Fulls had been a recruiter for about six years and accepted a job from Tenet Healthcare, not having any hospital experience. Her motherin-law had told her about a bad experience she had while getting a knee replacement several years earlier, but Fulls trusted the positive reviews provided by company employees.

Her own experience, she says, couldn’t have been more different. She was trying to fill up to 90 positions at a time, all by herself — scheduling and conducting every interview, giving every tour. One of the roadblocks to keeping hires was compensation, and Fulls says nurses left the facility once they finished their residency.

“It is to this date the most stressful job I’ve ever had,” Fulls says.

The Baylor years

In March 2015, Baylor Scott & White and Tenet Healthcare, the owner and operator of the hospital, announced a partnership to jointly own five medical facilities in North Texas, including Doctors Hospital at White Rock Lake.

As part of the deal, the name of the East Dallas hospital changed to Baylor Scott & White Medical Center - White Rock, and Baylor took a majority ownership interest in the hospital, but Tenet continued to manage operations. Current hospital leaders remained in place, and the companies expected min - imal changes for employees.

Brett Lee, the CEO of Tenet’s Dallas market, says in a 2015 news release that the partnership would better enable the hospital to care for patients.

(Baylor Scott & White Health could not be reached for comment.)

The Pipeline years

Baylor’s ownership didn’t last long. In 2018, Pipeline Health purchased the hospital, and it became City Hospital at White Rock Lake. Jane Brust, the vice president for marketing and communications at Pipeline, says the company was looking to expand beyond Los Angeles, and Baylor was looking for a buyer.

As with Doctors Hospital, patient feedback for City Hospital at White Rock Lake is mixed.

In 2018, Powers — who had been treated for a head injury there decades earlier — was taken to the hospital by ambulance, believing she was having a stroke. Powers says she was left on a gurney in the hallway for hours before undergoing any tests. She spent days at the hospital and had months of speech, physical and occupational therapy. When she resumed work as a receptionist at a veterinary hospital, a job she had for decades, she noticed her performance had declined following the stroke, she says.

But Allen, who had taken her daughter to the hospital when it was Doctors, had physical therapy there about a year ago, and she says she didn’t have any issues that time. Another patient, Megan Polakoff, says the staff took good care of her when she needed an emergency appendectomy in August 2020.

(White Rock Medical Center can’t disccuss details of a single patient experience without patient consent because of privacy laws. However, Melissa Grych, the director of marketing and communications for the hospital, says the hospital’s top priorities are always patient safety and quality care.)

Brust says market research revealed that some people found the hospital’s name confusing. Plus, when Pipeline acquired it, there wasn’t a comprehensive branding implementation plan.

To remedy this, Pipeline announced a rebranding in January 2022. The facility became White Rock Medical Center and took a new logo, and ownership launched a revamped marketing strategy to better describe its services.

“If we had been perceived as sort of asleep, we wanted to let the community know, this was a new day for White Rock Medical Center, and Pipeline was making investments in surgical robots and other things to really improve the facilities and enhance patient care,” Brust says.

Those investments went toward technologies that provide minimally invasive procedures, enabling customization to patients’ needs. The hospital also has a four-arm da Vinci system and a ROSA knee system, White Rock Medical Center CEO Matt Roberts says in a statement. These computer-assisted surgical technologies offer benefits such as a lower risk of infections and scarring and a shorter recovery time. They also allow surgeons enhanced vision, dexterity and control.

The hospital offers bariatric, cardiology, orthopedic, women’s health and emergency care services, Roberts says. Its bariatrics program is one of 11 throughout the country and the second in Texas to earn elite accreditation.

It also has an outpatient rehabilitation program that includes physical therapy, medically supervised cardiac rehab and aquatic therapy with a heated, indoor pool.

White Rock Medical Center opened a primary care clinic at Mockingbird Commons, at the corner of East Mockingbird Lane and Abrams Road, in July.

In October, Pipeline announced it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing industry-wide challenges exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as increasing labor and supply costs, delayed payments from insurance plans and decreased ability to generate revenue.

The clinic at Mockingbird Commons closed in late December, and services were moved to the main campus near White Rock Lake, Roberts says, because it was a financially prudent move to manage available resources. The two doctors who had been at the Mockingbird Commons location and specialize in family and internal medicine began caring for patients at a building on Poppy Drive right next to the hospital.

Pipeline shared news in January that the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas confirmed the company’s Chapter 11 plan, which included the sale of two hospitals, evaluating vendor contracts, developing a business plan to balance the budget and forming financial agreements with stakeholders who wanted to support the company in the future.

In addition, a few of the company’s top leaders said they would be “stepping away”; their replacements were announced in February, along with news that the company was officially emerging from bankruptcy.

The local hospital is different from others nearby because it is a community-focused medical center that handles a range of health concerns and cares for patients in their neighborhood, Roberts says.

Following the company’s exit from bankruptcy, White Rock Medical Center is focused on expanding key services. It plans to grow its home-based therapy program, which takes physical, occupational and speech therapy and wound care to patients.

The hospital also expects to open a new pulmonology clinic this summer, where patients can receive care for interstitial lung disease and other abnormal findings in their lungs. People with sleep apnea could also benefit from the pulmonologists, who will work alongside the hospital’s sleep center.

And no, the hospital’s name isn’t changing, and neither is the ownership.