Philip Clapp
Philip Clapp essentially was the founding father of the University of Iowa music department. But Clapp’s talents and abilities stretched far beyond mere administration.
Born in Boston in 1888, he showed precocious talent as a child. Clapp’s mother and aunt were his first piano teachers. When he was 11, he began to study music composition under the guidance of the dean of the Boston University School of Music.
Clapp graduated from Harvard in 1908, was awarded a master’s in 1909 after working with Boston Symphony conductor Kark Muck, and completed a doctorate in 1911 while studying in Germany under a Harvard fellowship.
In college he played piano, organ, violin and conducted the school orchestra. Clapp was a prolific composer, eventually authoring 12 symphonies, two operas and many other works. In 1917, he conducted the world premier of his Symphony in E Minor with the Boston Symphony.
But Clapp also was a teacher and believed profoundly in his mission of passing on his knowledge and passion for music. He taught at Harvard and Dartmouth for the next seven years before serving as a second lieutenant (and “band leader”) in the 73rd Regiment Coast Artillery Corps in World War I.
He arrived at UI in September 1919 and was charged with organizing an official music department.
He founded the school’s symphony orchestra in 1921 and served as its conductor from 1936 to 1954. Under his direction, UI established a major in composition in 1922 and became one of the first schools to offer a doctorate in the subject.
Besides the talent and stability he lended to the music school, Clapp also is remembered as a giant in a fairly technical field who truly valued an all-encompassing liberal education.
To that end, Clapp taught music history and music appreciation classes for non-music majors. Beginning in 1931, those classes were heard on the student radio station and garnered a big and varied listening audience. The Des Moines Register reported in an article published in 1948 that Clapp received fan mail from the show including a note from a farmer who wanted to know the date of Clapp’s lecture on Bach so he could plan his plowing accordingly.
Clapp’s name adorns one of UI’s recital halls, but his legacy stretches across the entire campus.