NEWS RELEASE
Clara Taplin Rankin honored
with The Cleveland Orchestra’s
fourteenth Annual Distinguished Service Award
Award to be presented at tonight’s Cleveland Orchestra concert
CLEVELAND, May 27, 2010 – Clara Taplin Rankin, whose long association with The Cleveland Orchestra goes back more than seven decades, will receive the fourteenth annual Cleveland Orchestra Distinguished Service Award, honoring a person or organization that has provided continuing exemplary service to the Musical Arts Association (MAA). The Award will be presented to Mrs. Rankin tonight on the stage of Severance Hall, immediately prior to the beginning of the Orchestra’s subscription concert. The Award will be presented by Dennis W. LaBarre, President of the Board of Trustees of the Musical Arts Association, the parent organization of The Cleveland Orchestra, Severance Hall, and Blossom Music Center.
Executive Director Gary Hanson said, “On behalf of Franz and our musicians and staff, I want to convey to Clara Rankin our profound gratitude for her devotion to the institution. With her love of music and decades of support, no one could be more deserving of this honor.”
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Clara Taplin Rankin is part of a family with a long musical tradition and with long ties of support for The Cleveland Orchestra. Her association with the Orchestra dates to when she attended concerts as a young teenager. Music was always a part of her home life, and she studied both piano and voice. She primarily concentrated on singing, studying in New York and Cleveland, and performing in the Cleveland area. Clara Taplin Rankin began serving the Orchestra as a volunteer in the late 1950s. A board member of numerous cultural organizations in the Cleveland area, she became a member of the Board of Trustees of the Musical Arts Association in 1997. A member of the Founders Society of The Cleveland Orchestra, Clara Taplin Rankin was a member of the Severance Hall Renovation Committee and the Severance Hall Re-opening Committee. She has been very active in fundraising activities for the Orchestra, including the 75th Anniversary Challenge Fund and serving as Co-Chair of the Endowment Campaign in 2006. Over the years, she has hosted several major events for the Orchestra.
Clara Taplin Rankin’s late husband, Alfred M. Rankin, joined the Musical Arts Association Board of Trustees in 1948, serving as its President from 1968 to 1983 and as Chairman of the Board from 1983 until his death in 1994. Her brother Frank E. Taplin Jr. served as MAA President from 1955 to 1957. Her son Alfred M. Rankin, Jr. and her granddaughter Helen Rankin Butler are current trustees of the Musical Arts Association.
With her husband, Mrs. Rankin endowed the Principal Second Violin Chair of The Cleveland Orchestra in 1980. The Rankins accompanied the Orchestra on several of its international tours, including the 1970 tour to Japan and the 1973 tour to Australia (which included performances during the opening week of the Sydney Opera House). Mrs. Rankin traveled to Hamburg and London for concerts during the Orchestra’s 2002 tour of Europe, and to Toronto for the Orchestra’s 2009 performance there.
Clara Taplin Rankin has said that The Cleveland Orchestra is important to her because of her “admiration for the high standards of excellence, as well as the beauty of sound.”
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The Musical Arts Association established the Distinguished Service Award in 1996 to recognize ongoing and extraordinary service to the Orchestra. Written nominations are reviewed by a committee currently chaired by Musical Arts Association Trustee Marguerite B. Humphrey.
Previous Distinguished Service Award recipients are: Dorothy Humel Hovorka (1996), David Zauder (1997), Ward Smith (1998), Christoph von Dohnányi (1999), Gary Hanson (2000), John Mack (2001), Richard J. Bogomolny (2002), Thomas W. Morris (2003), Alex Machaskee (2004), Klaus G. Roy (2005), John D. Ong (2006), Gerald Hughes (2007), and Louis Lane (2008).
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Press Contacts:
Jennifer Schlosser, (216) 231-7518; Email: jschlosser@clevelandorchestra.com
Ana Papakhian, Office: (216) 231-7476; Cell phone: (216) 370-2595; Email: anap@clevelandorchestra.com
