RSM People: Victoria Stephenson
RSM is lucky to receive legacies from musicians who want to continue helping fellow music professionals after their death. As well as donations and royalties, they also leave fine instruments to RSM, just as Yvonne Clarke did when she chose to leave her 1957 Voigt viola to the Society. We catch up with The Hallé Orchestra’s Victoria Stephenson, who has been the custodian of the viola for over a decade.
Victoria Stephenson and the Voigt viola (second left) with L-R RSM Chairman Clare Tyack and the Fine Instrument Scheme’s Levon Chilingirian OBE and Lawrence Wallington
When did you first know you wanted to be a musician and what made you choose the viola?
I always wanted to be musician, when I was little, I was watching the Proms on TV and pointed to the violin and said “I want to play that one!” So at school, my parents told the teachers I wanted to learn the violin, but they told me for about a year and half that I was too small. They kept saying “we haven’t got a violin small enough for her”, so when they finally gave one I wanted to make sure I was good at it. I played for about a year and a half before heading to Chetham’s. It was quite a quick transition, I was only 10.
There was never really another other doubts about what I was going to do. I went to RNCM and then RCM, both as a violinist. While doing my postgrad, I went to do a music course between my first and second years, there was a concert and they were desperate for a viola player. They couldn’t find one and I was the only person not in that half of the concert, so one of the String tutors contacted me to ask if I would do. I thought I would give it a go, but it wasn’t easy. We were playing Schubert, so I got in touch with the viola tutor, Robin Ashwell, and asked if he could help me put some fingerings in the part. After the concert, everyone was telling me I should play the viola, so I asked Robin if he knew of anyone who had a viola that I could try for a while, at least.
It wasn’t really an option for me at the time to buy an instrument. I grew up in a single parent household and I’d never even had my own violin, let alone a viola. Robin messaged me the very next day to say “RSM have just asked me to look at a viola today!”
So I sent in a letter explaining my circumstances and went in a couple of days later to discuss everything, and that was it. That was ten years ago now and I’ve had it ever since!
How did your relationship with Yvonne Clarke start and how did you come to be the person playing her 1957 Voigt viola?
It was RSM who introduced us, when she first offered her Voigt viola to the Society. We always kept in touch and used to put on a concert together each year, she also wrote a piece for me once, although we never actually managed to get it performed. I went around to her house to work on it together, so were saw each other on a semi-regular basis, at least a couple of times a year. She cared very intensely about the instrument, and even in her later years, she was very interested in the instrument that she had spent so long looking after. She never lost sight of that, which was incredible.
How important is it to have a fine instrument such as this Voigt example to play as a professional musician and what responsibility do you feel to care for the viola for future generations of musicians to benefit from it?
Actually, something interesting about the instrument is that when Yvonne was studying at Guildhall, it was compulsory to take a secondary-study instrument. She was a pianist and decided to take up the viola as her second instrument, and had this instrument made for her. She played it very little, so me and her are the only two people to have ever played it. It’s something that I really like and it feels quite special.
It’s not the most expensive instrument in the world, but I love it. It’s quite a lot deeper than other violas so it creates a really rich and warm sound. The first thing you notice when you start playing an instrument is the quality of its sound.
I grew in a single-parent family, which couldn’t afford to spend money buying instruments growing up, so I have that thought in the back of my head, that in the future, someone else might be given the opportunity I was to play it. Without it, there’s no way I would be where I am now. We work well together.
If you would like to contribute to helping musicians in need now and in future, just as Yvonne did, please visit www.rsmgb.org/legacy or call us on 020 7629 6137.