Rider University Piano Professor Finds Way to Continue Performing After Stroke

August 25, 2014
NJ.com

Ingrid Clarfield has a waiting list of more than 25 pianists eager to audition for her, young musicians who long to become one of her 12 private piano students should a spot open up.

Known as much for her unparalleled passion for music and teaching as she is for her mastery of the piano, Clarfield is described by friends and colleagues as vivacious, dynamic and just a little bit outrageous.

“She is a character,” says Victoria Chow, a former student who first met Clarfield at the age of 10 while at a piano camp. “From her, I learned that piano and music can really come alive.”

But in March 2007, after about four decades teaching her piano students to play with joy, the music nearly ended.

Clarfield had just returned to her Princeton home from a national conference in Toronto. Feeling tired, she quickly went to bed. At 4 a.m., she awoke and suddenly collapsed on the floor, the victim of a massive stroke. The attack left much of Clarfield’s left side paralyzed. Her first concern, however, was not about whether she would walk again.

“My first thought was, ‘Will I play again?’ ” she says, “because that is my life.”

Following the stroke, Clarfield, now 67, spent months in therapy, relearning how to walk, how to dress, how to manage all the basic skills she previously had taken for granted. As time went on, however, it became clear that she would not regain significant use of her left hand.

So Clarfield did what she had to do to continue playing. She found herself a “guest left hand.”

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