Remembering Violinist and Pedagogue Sally Thomas (1931-2024)

February 18, 2024, 2:07 AM · Violinist Sally Thomas passed away on Saturday at the age of 92, according to a post by her former student Steven Rochen on the Meadowmount Alumni Facebook page.

Born in Minot, North Dakota on March 20, 1931, Thomas earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School. She studied violin with Ivan Galamian, and was Galamian's assistant for many years. She also studied chamber music with Edouard Dethier, Josef Gingold, Hans Letz, and Louis Persinger.

"In many ways, she was the last of Galamian's Golden Age Assistants, a list that also included Margaret Pardee, Dorothy DeLay and a couple others," said violinist Odin Rathnam, who studied with Thomas for more than a decade at the Juilliard School.

Violinist and pedagogue Sally Thomas.

Thomas served as a faculty member the Juilliard School starting in 1961 in the College and Pre-College Divisions, and she spent more than 70 summers in Westport, New York at Meadowmount School of Music, where she was a violin faculty member since 1960.

Some of her students included James Ehnes, Rathnam, Stephanie Chase, Todd Phillips, Robert Schumitzky and Robert Canetti and many others. She was also involved in teaching Kyung Wha Chung.

"Sally Thomas was such an amazing teacher for me. Sometimes I look back on my years of studying with her, and it's almost like I was a wild horse," Ehnes told me in a 2009 interview on Violinist.com. "I could get going off in some direction, and until I started getting really off-track, Ms. Thomas generally would let me do my thing. She had a lot of confidence that I would figure certain things out on my own, and that the process of figuring them out was more important than her saying, 'Now do it this way.' Every student is different, but I did have this independent streak... (she was) careful not to mess with things that were working."

Ehnes posted this picture of him with Thomas on Facebook:

James Ehnes and Sally Thomas in 1995, at Meadowmount.

Thomas also was the author of editions of works for violin, and she wrote the introduction to the latest edition (2013) of Ivan Galamian's Principles of Violin Playing and Teaching.

"I came to Ms. Thomas in 1977, 11 years old, and she truly formed my playing and thinking over the next 11 years,” Rathnam told Violinist.com. "It wasn't always easy, but through the scales, arpeggios and canon of etudes plus repertoire, she challenged me to begin to learn how to teach myself. The question ‘Why did you make that mistake?’ had to be answered before trying to correct it began. The same applied to musical choices. She taught me to either make defendable choices, or learn from others."

“But most importantly, she was ever present, during great times and some of the more challenging years of my life, interested in my whole being, family and life choices,” Rathnam said. "Her teaching and lessons are with me every day, her stern and still loving gaze emblazoned in my mind's eye. I know her legacy and memory will live on through all the musical lives she nurtured."

Sally Thomas and Odin Rathnam

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Jake Watson

February 18, 2024 at 10:46 AM · RIP Sally Thomas

Peter Carter

February 19, 2024 at 06:47 PM · I have made my career on one of her violins she sold 27 years ago( Ferdinando Garimberti).We had a lovely chat regarding that violin and her present instrument.She sounded like a wonderful teacher.My condolences...

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Remembering Violinist and Pedagogue Sally Thomas (1931-2024)

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