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Saturday, January 11 2014 / Published in Weekly Feature

Jean Kopperud’s Balancing Act

By Lauren R. Giannini

 

Jean shows off her musical and riding skills on Baku. Photos by Barbara Bower, www.barbarasvisions.com.

Jean shows off her musical and riding skills on Baku.
Photos by Barbara Bower, www.barbarasvisions.com.

Professional musician, concert clarinetist, avant-garde performer, recording artist, chamber musician and college professor are some of the “hats” worn by Jean Kopperud in her unusual and eventful career. She has even played her clarinet while jumping out of airplanes and dangling from a parachute. She rode western until she was about 15 and got back in the saddle at 43. She did some eventing at the novice level. She hauls her horses to Boston so that eventer Adrienne Iorio can as Jean says, “very nicely but firmly can kick my butt.” She schools at third level in dressage with aspirations to achieve the FEI Level.

 

With all that, it’s hard to imagine Jean being afraid of anything, but one incident in particular changed the course of her academic focus and impacted her entire life. “I wanted to be a small animal vet – I had a scholarship, but when they started sending information about pigs and cows and there were almost no girls in vet school, I got scared,” Jean recounted. “I ended up changing my major to music and by my sophomore year I was on fire. Music is like riding: it’s really interesting and I was practicing for hours every day. I had a dream about going East for my junior year and I went to Julliard for graduate school. It was all very exciting once I was in school. I loved performing and I was totally hooked.”

 

Jean had taken piano lessons when she was very young, but she didn’t enjoy it. “At 10, they offered instruments at school and the band director wanted me to play flute – I said ‘no way – it is a girl’s instrument’ and I left,” she recalled. “The next day I went back and said I wanted to play clarinet. My parents weren’t happy, but I made a deal with them. They couldn’t ask me anything about my clarinet lessons and I didn’t tell them anything.”

 

Her virtuoso expertise, coupled with the fact that she was a marathon runner, garnered Jean her first performance art job: a 45-minute solo piece for a clarinet player who dances the entire time, entitled “Harlekin” by Stockhausen. “I was working as a musician, but I quit waiting tables, enrolled in dance class, worked with a choreographer and six months later I came out with this humongous piece,” Jean said. “Harlekin was totally new in the performance art area and it earned a lot of press. Harlekin is where I discovered myself. I got out of the box and followed a different path with a more theatrical bent to it.”

 

Jean stayed really busy for years. She earned her Master’s in Music at Julliard, studied in France with Nadia Boulanger and toured the world – literally – logging lots of air miles as concert soloist and chamber musician while playing in the U.S., Canada, Europe, China, Japan, the Caribbean and Australia. She parlayed her passion for skydiving into a music theatre work called “CloudWalking.”

 

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.

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.

She is respected as one of the most versatile and innovative clarinetists in the world 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 bought a Danish Hanoverian, 10, showing Prix St. Georges and Intermediaire-I,” Jean said. “I’m hoping Avanti can teach me to teach Baku and Hanno.”

 

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.”

Professional musician, concert clarinetist and dressage rider Jean Kopperud with Hanno.

Professional musician, concert clarinetist and dressage rider Jean Kopperud with Hanno.

Double D Trailers Info

Tagged under: “Extreme Measures”, “Live in America” CD, Adrienne Iorio, Albany Records’ CD, Baku, Barbara Bower, concert clarinetist, Danish Hanoverian, Darren Chiacchia, dressage, Elizabeth Niemi, Hanno, horse-magazine, Jean Kopperud, Julliard, lauren r. giannini, Macro Bernal, musician, Peter Leone’s Lionshare Farm, sidelines-magazine, University at Buffalo, wef, wellington, www.BarbarasVisions.com

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Jan Lukens has always felt blessed to be an artist Jan Lukens has always felt blessed to be an artist, turning his observations into works of art, but it hasn't always been easy. “My biggest challenge starting out was fitting in to the equestrian world as an artist, not a rider. Although I spent the better part of two decades exhibiting 15 weeks a year at national horse shows, there’s a massive 
difference between an artist who paints horses and someone who has been climbing into the saddle since they were 5 years old, surrounded by all aspects of the horse 
world.”

A prolific painter working mainly in oils, Jan’s original and commissioned works of art hang in the collections of the likes of individual gold medalist Joe Fargis and Rodrigo Pessoa, as well as many other Olympians and owners. One of the most influential 
moments in Jan’s career was in 2014, when Ralph Lauren acquired two of his equestrian paintings. “I was still recovering from the 2008 recession at that time. There  is a unique part of a painter’s reputation that is based on who has purchased or commissioned his art, and when I promoted that sale, my phone didn’t stop ringing for a 
year and a half.”
For more information visit janlukens.com

Read Jan’s full article at the link in our bio. And never miss an article by subscribing to Sidelines Magazine! 

 #Sidelines #sidelines2023 #sidelinesmagazine #magazine #forhorsepeople #abouthorsepeople
Calling all trainers and professional riders! St Calling all trainers and professional riders! 

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Yay for June! We have another great edition for yo Yay for June! We have another great edition for you all that we can't wait for you to read. Up first are Evan and Ashley Donadt a dynamic duo that has won the hearts of many! Stay tuned for many great stories like this by following us on Instagram and Facebook or subscribing to get your very own copy of Sidelines Magazine!

What happens when a horse-crazy equestrian girl meets a never-touched-a-horse-before guy? If you’re Ashley and Evan Donadt, it might just be the beginning of a happily-ever-after that includes a solid dressage program and extremely popular social media channels featuring good-natured humor and horses.

Ashley, a lifelong equestrian, began her horse experiences with the local 4-H club, progressed to lessons with the local dressage trainer when she was 10, then her own pony when she was 11. Conversely, Evan grew up in Massachusetts, without any horse experience to speak of. The odds of them meeting were fairly low, until fate landed them both in Southern California.

Evan knew from the start that spending time with Ashley meant spending time at the barn. In fact, Ashley told him straightaway, “The horses come first always; you’re going to be second!” Evan wasn’t deterred, and instead found the loophole: spending all his own free time with her at the barn.

Read Ashley and Evan's full article in this month's edition of Sidelines Magazine! You can also click the link in our bio. Don't forget to subscribe to get your very own copy delivered right to your door! Thank you Evan and Ashley for allowing us to share your story!
📸Portraits by Jeni Jo Brunner

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As we head into June we wrap up our May women entr As we head into June we wrap up our May women entrepreneur, edition. We were so lucky to be able to feature so many amazing women within the Horse industry. We have one more to share with you, and if you missed any of the women entrepreneur stories head to our website for all of our past issues! Enjoy! 

Hurry Up and Wait” is a familiar saying at hunter-jumper competitions. Unlike other disciplines, where 
riders are assigned specific ride times, hunter-jumper riders typically must check in with the starter at 
the in-gate throughout the day to determine when they will show. In 2019, Emma Fass decided to put 
her computer science background to use in the show industry and created RingSide Pro to allow riders 
to be “ringside” wherever they are.
Throughout high school, Emma competed at horses shows on her horse Son Of A Sailor, aka Ernie, 
oftentimes trailering Ernie into the show for the day with her mom. “That was stressful because we 
didn’t know how the show was running until we got there. Even once we were on the show grounds, we 
struggled to find information. It’s a hike to the rings and the speakers in the barns tend to be 
unreliable,” Emma said. “I would think to myself, There’s got to be a better way.”

For more information, visit www.ringsidepro.com

Read Emma’s full story at sidelinesmagazine.com, and never miss an edition of Sidelines magazine by subscribing. 

@ringsideproinsta @emmafass 
📸Photos by Kirsten Konopnicki, kkonophoto #Sidelines #sidelines2023 #sidelinesmagazine #magazine #forhorsepeople #abouthorsepeople
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