108 SIDELINES FEBRUARY 2014
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
She is respected as one of the most versatile and innovative
clarinetists in theworld and renowned for her virtuoso performances
which are reviewed with adjectives like “superhuman” and
“unforgettably visual” and “magnificent,” to name a few. She has
an impressive curriculum vitae, to say the least, and you can
experience Jean’s clarinet playing with the Thüringer Salonquintett
on the “Live in America” CD and also on the Albany Records’ CD,
“Extreme Measures” – for clarinet and piano, which features all of
the works commissioned and written specifically for Jean.
Something happened, however, triggering a return to riding and
purchasing a farm and just finding a better balance for herself
in terms of life in general. The crisis came when Jean was 43,
living in a high-rise in New York City, working seven days a week.
“I started looking around – I had a lot of recordings, a bunch of
concerts – and I thought, is this it? I enrolled in art school, but that
didn’t work,” she recalled.
“I read an article about Peter Leone’s Lionshare Farm in
Greenwich, Connecticut and I called up and asked for lessons.
From that moment on I had found the solution. Six months later,
I bought Snickers and my farm in North Salem, New York, which
I kept for 10 years while I commuted to my New York City life. I
have a full-time job, a concert career, four horses, and I do my
own farm work. The horses are the best thing that ever happened
to me.
Jean’s life also encompasses her beloved animals. She has
two show-quality dogs, Boxers. Her horses include her first ever,
Snickers, now 25, and Hanno, now 11, the “packer” with whom
Jean partnered to get her feet wet eventing. Baku is her eight-
year-old Trakhener, doing First Level dressage.
I have two farms, a full-time job, a concert career, four horses,
and I do my own farm work. The horses are the best thing that
ever happened to me.”
Jean has ridden with a number of seriously good equestrians,
including eventer Darren Chiacchia and dressage trainer Elizabeth
Niemi. Paula Cahill comes to her New York farm and Jean will ride
Avanti in Florida with dressage trainer Marco Bernal. Every six
to eight weeks she takes lessons with German dressage trainer
Christian Garweg.
“I have known Jean more than 10 years and have been working
with her off and on all that time,” said Elizabeth. “She is very fit.
She can ride well. She’s a musician. She’s artsy. She wears
cowboy boots and she’s a professor, knows how to deal with the
public and with college students. She’s very nice. She isn’t your
average dressage queen. She’s really into her dogs, her horses
and her music.”
If only every mid-life crisis could turn out this well. Jean owns
two farms, having bought one next to Wellington last year at the
bottom of the market. “It was a great bargain and I had a sabbatical
and moved to Florida for the winter with the dogs and horses,” she
said. “It was an empty house and I furnished it. I built a barn and
dressage arena. I was good to go. Even though I can only go there
a couple of months every year, I have it. The realtor described it
as a little spot of heaven. It’s gorgeous, perfect.”
Jean still plays the clarinet – very modern, very avant-garde
music, what she considers “brand new stuff, wild stuff” and she
teaches. “About seven years ago, University at Buffalo (SUNY)
offered me a job I couldn’t refuse,” she said. “I’m a professor at UB
and I still teach master classes at Julliard every spring. My farm
in Clarence is near Buffalo. As a teacher, the thing I’m special at
– and this is my love – I work with students who are performing.
They’re engineers, dancers, basketball players and actors as well
as musicians. I’m only into psychology as an amateur, but I have
learned that if you run your life well, you get everything you want.
Animals, music, farms – I have gotten everything I want.”
Jean has played her clarinet while jumping out of airplanes and
dangling from a parachute – so playing while on horseback is a
piece of cake.
Professional musician, concert clarinetist and dressage rider
Jean Kopperud with Hanno.
