Lisa Parker

Lisa Parker has been an important American Dalcroze pioneer. She studied at the New York City Dalcroze School with Dr. Hilda Schuster, who studied with Dalcroze. Lisa frequently remarked that in America, we made the Dalcroze work our own while still adhering to the principles. Having also studied with Dr. Schuster, I observed that it was true.

As many of her students did, I came to study with Lisa Parker at the Longy School of Music where she started the Dalcroze program, still continuing to this day. For years, Lisa traveled, giving classes and workshops, introducing and developing the Dalcroze work. For decades, her students came to study with her and with Anne Farber, from all over the country and the world. ey were so much more than just teachers, they were mentors. e program became an important destination and still is for those interested in the Dalcroze work. Students developed skills, knowledge, and in many cases, a career.

Lisa Parker was a consummate Dalcroze specialist and proponent, yet she developed her own teaching style and o en encouraged her students to do the same. She frequently seemed to be teaching as if by magic, having a natural flow, focus, originality and sensitivity to her students. Although there was no way to copy her style of teaching, though many people tried, she did introduce countless students to the Dalcroze work. She would o en encourage students and colleagues to find their own way to adhere to it and to also interpret it. While working as one of her colleagues, it was a trait I admired.

Lisa Parker will be greatly missed by so many. Her work will most certainly live on in a myriad of ways, through her students.

Ginny La s

It is with great pleasure that we honor our dearest colleague, Lisa Parker, who served on Le Collège de l’Institut Jaques-Dalcroze (Geneva) for many years. Lisa made a remarkable contribution to the development of Dalcroze eurhythmics in the world, she was an inspiration to the entire Dalcrozian community! She was an outstanding teacher who had a profound influence on many of us, students and colleagues. Her lessons were so musical and inspiring, and her smile, beautiful and caring. Her departure creates a great void, but her legacy remains and will continue to exist through the generations.

Her memory will forever be engraved in our hearts.

On behalf of Le Collège de l’Institut Jaques-Dalcroze,

Louise Mathieu President

Dear Lisa,

Your presence in me is so alive that I address my words to you today.

I must have been seventeen years old when we met at a Dalcroze Congress in Geneva.

I was deeply touched by the beauty of your teaching: your musical and pedagogical intelligence, your humanity, your sense of humor, the richness of your improvisation, your pragmatism and your culture brought me a new breath and a complement to what I had known until then.

We met through eurhythmics, but it is above all a bond of friendship that we have woven during the decades that followed. You had an open heart and mind. Talking with you about important or trivial things, laughing or crying, everything was possible. Your curiosity led you on various paths, including the one of self-knowledge. e one we practiced together with a shared interest and enthusiasm is Osteophonie, because of its deep connection between humanity and music.

You have led your professional life in a remarkable way. What a lot of wonderful work you have achieved! Your students all over the world are living witnesses of this. However, you would have liked to find a be er balance in your emotional life. You had many friends and were very close to your family, but you also said that you missed having a man by your side.

A er leaving the position of director of the Dalcroze department that you had created in Longy, you continued to give private lessons and courses to seniors. You took a lot of pleasure from it. For my part, I benefited from your precious and generous support in my return to Dalcroze teaching and you actively participated in listening to all the recordings I made for my pedagogical project. What a gi

Life has put you through a di cult ordeal by gradually depriving you of speech and

I first met Lisa at the [Longy] Summer Institute in 1996. I was captivated by her teaching, and her personality and, of course, by Dalcroze. I promised to return for more, but family responsibilities kept me away until 2019. In the meantime, we kept in touch, I studied conducting with her privately, and she visited me and my family in Maine. ere was nothing I learned from Lisa which I did not use repeatedly in my teaching and music-making over the course of those years.

What a joy to finally return to Longy in July of 2019, and, at eighty-five (!), Lisa welcomed me back as if I had never le ...then I got hit by a car while biking home on the third day of class. I su ered a severe head trauma, and other injuries, leaving me almost immobile. Lisa sprang into action. I could at least observe classes, and she would solicit donations from the faculty so that I could Ly back and forth to school daily once I got out of the hospital. I am grateful for that to this day. What an incredible lady! A superb musician, a great teacher, and a wonderful human being! I will never forget her!

Richard Pitre

movement. You showed courage and resilience, and were infinitely grateful to be so well cared for by your family.

While your words became fewer—but still relevant—your sparkling eyes never lost their sharpness and your face remained so expressive! I will never forget the tenderness and emotional depth of our exchanges during the week we had the pleasure of spending together last summer in Maine with my husband Michel and your family.

Dear Lisa, your leaving is not a rupture, on the contrary. Writing to you, talking to you, thinking about you, means always to live a beautiful moment of friendship.

I have only gratitude and joy to have had the privilege to meet you, to know you, and to share so many colors of life with you.

anks to Life.

Françoise Lombard

One of the first, and most enduring, memories of Lisa was her piano improvisation. e ways Lisa traversed landscapes from atonal to tonal, her touch on the instrument, her bass lines, sequences, and fluid modulations were all part of it, but the sum was greater. ese were all tools through which she evoked such beauty and nuance of movement, such space. I o en just listened to Lisa’s playing, not for pedagogical reasons but simply because of how much I love her improvisations.

What consistently blew me away though is how simple so much of her playing was. I mean, on the one hand here was music that was so evocative, so moving in such emotionally contradictory ways, and on the other, it was so o en so simple when you analyze it from her perspective! e more accurate term is elegant. As profound as her playing was, Lisa made sure to play in ways that enabled her to pour her a ention to the smallest details of her students. I guess that sort of elegance is part of the reason that anyone who has had the good fortune of taking one of Lisa’s classes will know what we mean when so many of her students say that nobody played like Lisa. e other enduring quality that comes to mind right away was Lisa’s thirst for learning. e notion that someone as accomplished and experienced as Lisa remained fascinated, and curious, and investigative, even when illness was upon her, is good news for all of us. ank you.

Guy Mendilow

Lisa Parker was Dalcroze royalty. She was a queen of improvisation; of unfolding layers of a lesson like the plot in an absorbing novel. We willingly surrendered to her magic, her musical elegance, her deep insights, and her endlessly inventive exercises that, literally, kept us on our toes.

One day, in the summer of 1985, I stepped up the winding, wooden staircase of Longy’s historic home for a solfège class and was ultimately led to a basement room under Pickman Hall for a Dalcroze experience with Lisa Parker that transformed my life.

Lisa invited me to discover that music was more than notes on a page in need of re-creation. She guided me to the realization that music is alive in each of us; that our own creative voice is waiting to emerge and be fully expressed through our body, singing voice, the vehicle of a drum, piano, flute, or any number of instruments.

Lisa Parker was my lifelong teacher, mentor, colleague, and friend.

“Teach the students, not the lesson plan,” Lisa said in a Dalcroze pedagogy class. Of course, she did not mean to imply a lesson plan is superfluous. On the contrary, a well-considered, artful plan is essential and “Is your improv ready?” she would ask in her mellifluous, expectant voice.

I believe what Lisa meant was to be ever alive and alert to the needs of your class. Be in the moment. Teaching is a form of improvisation; a give and take between all members of the equation; a mutual learning. Together, the teacher and students form a continuous feedback loop.

I learned from Lisa to be truly present with my students. ey show me what they need; what direction to take. is may, or may not, correspond exactly to the lesson plan. at’s okay. What ma ers is making a connection with the students, students connecting with themselves and each other, all while immersed in the musical subject at hand. Lisa said that if you know your pedagogical goals (musical and otherwise) and have facility in your teaching, endless pathways to your desired destination will be revealed.

Today, Lisa Parker’s graceful elegance, keen musical intelligence, and endless creativity sparkles in each of us who were touched by her extraordinary life and teaching artistry. Lisa’s legacy is carried forward, throughout the world, by her former students. In this way, I believe her gi s continue to enrich us beyond measure.

Melissa Tucker

e first time I met Lisa was at a workshop of the Tristate Chapter. We passed a ball, imagining it being light or heavy or any weight in between. Lisa accompanied/guided us by playing the piano. Her improv was out of this world: rich, varied, beautiful, surprising, inspiring, expressive, a joy to listen to and very inviting to move. I was in love with her music, then and always a erward. Lisa’s teaching was equally great: she generously shared her knowledge and experience, was demanding and encouraging in a miraculous balance. Lisa spread a lot of joy.

I miss her but I treasure the many beautiful memories. I’m grateful to have met her.

Johanna Kopp

I had the privilege of meeting Lisa Parker during my first months of undergraduate study at the Longy School of Music. She, along with the other wonderful Dalcroze teachers at Longy, opened a doorway into music and changed the course my life has taken. Not only did her musicianship inspire her students to learn more about how music resides in the body, she also inspired us to trust and develop our musical intuition. She had a special ability to see her students’ strengths and help them hone these as tools in our performance, improvisation and pedagogy.

Time and again, she would take an idea I set forth in improvisation or pedagogy—which o en felt limited in skill or musicality—and show it could be nurtured and transformed into a powerful musical force that could move a classroom. She always found a way to challenge her students to stretch to a new capacity, no ma er what they brought to their work, helping us to uncover what was within. Her simplicity of improvisation always allowed the music to shine through.

I will always remember her response at a workshop when a student asked how she created such a magical experience in her classrooms. True to Lisa, she found a way to reflect this compliment while ge ing to the heart of the ma er, saying that she in fact was not magical, rather that “the magic is in the music.” ank you, Lisa, for revealing to us a li le bit of this magic in all you did.

Emma Shubin

I first encountered Lisa Parker at an Or conference in Boston where she gave a pair of Dalcroze workshops. I hadn’t signed up for these classes; some guardian angel had placed me in them. Fi een minutes into the first class, I knew my life had changed. Here was this beautiful woman leading us into a [Dmitry] Kabalevsky piano piece through movement, through listening, through embracing it with heart and mind. It was a simple piece for children, and the lesson was perfect for children as well, but both piece and lesson were gems. I realized that I didn’t need to “invent the wheel”—it already existed at the Longy School. I arranged to come to Cambridge the following summer, putting my young children in a local summer camp, ge ing my first deep dive into Dalcroze.

Of course, I got more than Lisa in the bargain; she had the perfect co-teacher in Anne Farber. e two of them created an environment where learning wasn’t just fun—it was a passionate endeavor. Fixed do solfège became an adventure; movement was the way into connecting to what music was all about. I had been an improviser before I knew how to talk; Lisa and Anne opened up a world of pianisitic possibilities. Never had a challenge been so thoroughly gratifying.

During the next five summers I found myself (literally) in Cambridge being trained as a musician and as a Dalcroze teacher. I would go back to my job in Los Angeles and gradually apply what I had learned to my own students.

Lisa was a musician’s musician and a teacher’s teacher. She provided a model of how to teach with grace, delight, and intelligence. Her piano improvisations were gorgeous but never self-aggrandizing. Her directions were as charming as they were precise. Every lesson was an experience in closing in on a concept, a physical puzzle, and (almost always) a piece of classical music. I was frequently brought to tears by the sheer beauty of the journey led by Lisa.

I join the many who are forever grateful to have known and studied with Lisa; each of us, in our own ways, carry a torch passed to us. But there was only one Lisa, and I miss her so very much.

Cynthia Lilley

e first dsa National Conference I a ended was held at Carnegie Mellon University in July 1972. I will never forget Lisa Parker’s opening session, a beautifully delivered and constructed eurhythmics lesson, a work of art, really. Fi y years later, I remember Lisa’s entry into the room: she glided in, with a gracious, loving presence. Her voice was lilting, warm, and expressive.

With a focus on the subject of binary-ternary, Lisa used imagery, beginning with “walls.” Lying on the floor, class members curled into fetal positions, surrounded and held in by imaginary walls. With our bodies—hands, elbows, feet, heads—we pushed the walls away, making more and more space, until finally, we broke free, standing up, then skipping and galloping around the room, with Lisa’s improvised music. As the lesson progressed, we delved deeper into the subjects. Lisa improvised music in binary rhythms that described walls: dense and serious. Responding to this music, we stood three or four, or more, abreast, arms locked as we moved, striding forward as in a phalanx, unsmiling. When Lisa improvised in ternary, we broke away, free again, happily skipping around the room.

Lisa’s lesson progressed seamlessly; she played musical examples that illustrated the subjects of the lesson. ese included the Dance (“Tanz”) from a section of Carl Or ’s Carmina Burana,”Uf Dem Anger,” to which we improvised binary-ternary “minuets” with partners. e lesson concluded with Lisa reciting lines from the poem, “ e Mending Wall” by Robert Frost: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” (ternary), and “Good fences make good neighbors” (binary). e entire lesson was intensely musical; I was enchanted, excited, inspired—opened. A erwards, my head spun, filled with new ideas. I wanted more. “More” became a lifetime of studying and teaching Dalcroze eurhythmics. ank you, Lisa.

At the heart of the Dalcroze lesson is music improvisation by the teacher for the students’ movements. In this photo (above le ) of a workshop lesson by Lisa in winter 2014, members of the class are moving with partners and smiling. ey are responding to the fantastic, upbeat, jazzy music Lisa improvises. We can see, in Lisa’s posture, that while Lisa watches her students, she watches over them; while they listen to her music, she is making pedagogical and musical decisions.

My experience as a musician and teacher has involved a decades-long immersion in Dalcroze eurhythmics. Lisa has played a major role in this scenario. A er participating in the dsa workshop in 1972, I lived in Cambridge, Massachuse s for one year.

During this time, I observed Lisa’s eurhythmics classes for children and adults. Since that time, I have studied and worked with Lisa. I cannot imagine my personal or professional life without Lisa’s presence. Lisa has been a generous teacher, colleague and friend. She leaves a legacy of a multitude of students, across the U.S., and around the world; many are now certified Dalcroze teachers. A er decades of leadership of the Dalcroze Institute at the Longy School of Music, Lisa confidently bestowed the role onto Eiko Ishizuka. e Institute continues with a talented new leadership and cohort of teachers, all beautifully trained by Lisa.

I was delighted to see Dalcrozians Ma ie Kaiser and Aaron Butler in 2017 in Quebec at the Universite Laval, where the third International Conference of Dalcroze Studies (icds) was held. ey participated in a special eurhythmics class taught by Silvia del Bianco and Sylvie Morgenegg, from the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze. Ma ie moved the exercises away from the class, o to the side of the room, carefully, as she held their infant daughter, Sage. In this photo (above right) are three generations of Dalcrozians: Lisa, Ma ie, and Sage.

Ruth Alperson

My thoughts about Lisa are almost too profound to put into words. Lisa was poetry in motion, from her voice to her mind to her entire being. I will never forget her and I count myself as one of the blessed ones to have had her in my life.

Kathy Jones

Lisa Parker’s teaching in the dsa Conference at Ithaca College in 1981 was my first experience of her beautiful work in music. From then on, I was drawn like a magnet to her lessons and workshops, both as participant and observer, at Longy and other places, including her unforgettable visits to Toronto.

Without a doubt, Lisa’s inspired teaching was always undergirded by her sense of presence...a profound sense of being. I sensed she first and foremost just wanted to “be” with each of us.

Twila Miller

In conversations, she generously shared insights about her own teaching and the people from whom she learned, especially Hilda Schuster. Lisa as editor encouraged me to write my first Dalcroze history article, “Chicago, 1913: Eurhythmics Entering American Dance,” for the American Dalcroze Journal (Fall 1983). I am forever grateful that she introduced me to many of her colleagues and students, who in turn widened my understanding of the Dalcroze practice.

Soaked in academic music theory, I walked into one of Lisa’s 3rd-year classes at Longy and walked out in a daze. I felt I had found what I had been missing all along—the wonderful holistic musical world that is Dalcroze—and there was no more magical guide than Lisa, of course. I’m ever grateful for the Dalcroze experience and Lisa’s wisdom, patience, and inspiration. A er years of improvising professionally and for fun, I realized that there was a focus and discipline to it—thrilling!

She was a wonderful pianist, and improviser, of course, and gave us the precious gi of expanding our minds, our listening, our perceptions of ourselves and what could be possible. I’ll miss our lunches, discussions, friendship, and I’m not alone in this. ank you, dear Lisa. You gave us joy, always.

Margaret Ulmer

Video: Keynote Address from ICDS3

Sing and move with Lisa’s music in this recording from the 2017 3rd International Conference of Dalcroze Studies (ICDS3) in Quebec City, Canada titled “The Living Moment: Exploring Improvisational Practice.”

Watch it at linktr.ee/dalcrozeusa

In 1978, I came to the United States to study and mentor with Lisa Parker. I had met her at the Dalcroze Conference in Geneva, Switzerland in the summer of 1977 and she graciously invited me to join her at Longy School of Music for a year of study. I delightfully and immediately accepted her invitation that came to me just a er I had completed my Master’s Degree in Eurhythmics at the Musikhochschule Detmold, Germany, and was ready to venture into the New World.

I so loved working with Lisa as a student, teaching assistant and then becoming her daughters Eden and Wendy’s German language teacher where we created and performed German plays and musicals on stage in Lisa’s backyard. Most creative and enjoyable times.

Lisa had become a friend, confidant, and a guide, and was most influential in terms of my teaching preschool- to college-level groups at New England Conservatory and Berklee College of Music. She supported me in finding my way into this new country that ultimately became my home.

I’m deeply grateful to you, Lisa, for your guidance and wisdom and (not to forget) your contagious humor and playful way of being. I feel most blessed having known you.

Elsbeth Meuth

I have recognized and respected Lisa Parker as an exceptional Dalcroze teacher and mentor who had always taught and trained all her students in a kind and wholehearted spirit. Gratefully, I am truly proud to be one of her students at Longy School of Music during the period from 2003–2005.

She warmly welcomed me, as a foreign student from abroad, to the school by kindly allowing me to have an audition appointment, and later accepting my audition. Since then, I have learned a lot from her in all academic respects. Most importantly, I have learned from her how to be a competent music teacher. She had helped me change the way I feel about learning and teaching music, thus leading me to the Dalcroze world. With her rich experiences, Lisa Parker had heedfully trained and tempered me to become a good music teacher of today. Her outstanding example has greatly inspired me to determinedly march forward along the path of Dalcroze music and to do my best in my teaching career in the interest of my students.

Toon Chamroon

Editor’s note: Unfortunately, space limitations prevented us from publishing all the reflections we received in Lisa’s honor. Please visit dalcrozeusa.org/blog for Part 2.