‘An Important Voice’: Memorial Concert For Helga Hulse To Be Performed | News, Sports, Jobs
Collin Everett, a student of Helga Hulse’s, who will be performing in the memorial concert in her honor on Oct 23. Submitted Photo
Hulse passed away on Aug. 27 of this year shortly after turning 100. She spent more than 80 years of that time as a music teacher, teaching many students in the area. Her musical abilities made her well-known throughout her life, including in 2001 when she was given the Key to the City of Jamestown by Mayor Sam Teresi and had Sept. 21 declared “Helga Hulse Day” by the mayor.
The concert to be held in her honor will be Sunday at 4 pm at First Lutheran Church in Jamestown. One of Hulse’s former students, Collin Everett, has been asked to perform.
“I took piano lessons with (Hulse) and started at the age of five,” Everett said. “I took lessons for about 12 years. (Hulse) was a very formative voice in music for me. She taught me everything I know and influenced me to keep pursuing music in college and grad school. She was a very important voice in my life.”
Everett, who is now a professor at the University of Southern Mississippi where he is also pursuing his doctorate, said the only negative thing he felt about it was that he took his lessons when he was a kid and thought he did not appreciate it as much as he should have at the time.
“I wish I could go back and appreciate it and her more,” Everett said. “She was a big foundation in my life.”
One of Everett’s special memories of Hulse was when she came down to Cincinnati from Jamestown on a bus to see his junior recital at college.
“This was not a big performance or anything,” Everett said. “She just wanted to see me perform. So, she got on a bus by herself and came down. She was in her 90s at the time. She cared so much for all of her students. I’m really grateful for that.”
Everett still uses a lot of Hulse’s teachings in his life, from the way she taught him to approach new music and study a score to fingering choices and how to memorize music. Her lessons have influenced the way he plays and performs, including bowing to the audience before sitting down at the piano, and how he describes his music to his audience.
Helga Hulse is pictured at the piano at the Robert H. Jackson Center. Photo courtesy of Chautauqua Region Community Foundation
Helga Hulse is pictured in this undated photo. Submitted photo
Collin Everett, a student of Helga Hulse’s, who will be performing in the memorial concert in her honor on Oct 23. Submitted Photo
Everett no longer lives in the area, but said the concert felt like something he had to do because of the amount of times she did things for him over the course of her life.
“She cared so much about all of her students,” Everett said. “I thought that if she would go out of her way for me throughout her life, then of course I could travel a little bit of distance and do this for her.”
Everett’s performance will include a piece he studied with Hulse as a child that was too hard for him at the time and that he had ended up giving up on.
“Her only comment was that she was glad I was working on it and that she got to hear it played by me,” Everett said. “I did have to give up on it because it was too hard for me at the time. I’m glad I have this chance to revisit it and finally play it for her and show that I finally learned the music that she cared about and I can give this performance for her.”
Everett said he was not sure why he was the one asked to perform for her out of all of her students but he was honored to be asked.
“My mother was still very close with her and I saw her and played for her just last year,” Everett said. “We did keep in touch even though I don’t live in the area anymore. I’m honored to be asked because there are so many other students of hers that would be more than capable. I won’t necessarily play better than anyone else could but I’m glad I get to have the opportunity to play and include the special message I have with the one piece and get to celebrate her through it.”
Hulse, born Sept. 21, 1921, in Honolulu, Hawaii, began taking piano lessons from her mother, Florence Booco Johnson, at the age of 3 and soon was filling in on radio recitals her mother’s students presented each week. She was playing full recitals at the age of 7 in Honolulu and Chicago, was a guest soloist with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra when she was 11 and performed with the Women’s Symphony Orchestra of California when she was 17. A 1980 profile of Hulse by The Post -Journal’s Carol Cohan detailed Hulse’s extensive studies at the University of Southern California, where she received a masters degree in education; the Chicago Musical College, the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, the McCune School of Music in Salt Lake City and the State University at Albany.
The 1990s saw the beginning of the Helga Hulse Mozart Club Scholarship through the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation. The scholarhsip helps students from Chautauqua County with the costs of music instruction. Applicants must show promise, as well as academic and vocational achievement. Students of any age are eligible for this scholarship
More than anything else, Everett said the most important lesson he took away from Hulse is the ability to love life, even after 100 years of it.
“She always had a continued interest in doing things,” Everett said. “She wanted to explore, learn and overall she enjoyed being alive. Even at 100 she wanted to keep doing new things. It’s such an inspiration to me. I will forever aspire to want to keep doing things and to be happy with life. She was an inspiration for everyone, whether they are involved in music or not.”
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