This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 14, 2011 - John Kendall, who taught violin at the college level for more than 50 years and who made "Suzuki" a household name in America, died Jan. 6 at Arbor Hospice in Ann Arbor, Mich., his home for the past five years. He died from complications of a stroke he suffered last November. He was 93.
Mr. Kendall is widely credited with bringing the Japanese Suzuki Method of teaching violin to children to the United States and many other countries.
Mr. Kendall spent more than three decades of his career teaching music at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where he founded the Lincoln Quartet and the SIUE Suzuki Program. Under his leadership, the program became an international training center for teachers, attracting students from around the world.
He joined the SIUE faculty in 1963 as professor of violin and director of the string development program. It was the same year he planned the first U.S. Suzuki conference, held in Alton and attended by music teachers from all over the country, and the year he organized the first Suzuki tour of the United States. Shinichi Suzuki and 10 young Japanese students barnstormed across the U.S., enthralling audiences in 19 cities over 21 days.
Trick or Inspired Treat?
Shinichi Suzuki, who died in 1998, based his approach on the once controversial educational belief that all children, if properly trained, can develop musical ability, just as all children develop the ability to speak their native language.
Mr. Kendall first became aware of the Suzuki Method while teaching at Muskingum College (now University) in New Concord, Ohio. During a conference, he saw a film featuring hundreds of young Japanese children ably playing the Bach Double Concerto. He thought he was witnessing a trick.
"I was curious but very skeptical," he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1997. "Were these kids really benchwarmers, just pretending to play?"
He had to know, so he began his Suzuki quest.
In 1959, Mr. Kendall received the financial backing of the Bok and Presser foundations of Philadelphia, and made his first trip to Matsumoto, Japan, where he spent three months observing Suzuki and his students. He returned for a longer stay in 1962, a trip that cemented his belief in the Suzuki Method. He returned home ready to share his knowledge with teachers and thousands of schoolchildren across the nation.
His first graduate student at SIU-E was Marilyn Kesler.
"He is the reason I am what I am," said Kesler, a conductor and cellist who taught strings for more 40 years in the Michigan public school system. "He made all students feel comfortable. He always gave you the courage to do your best."
In addition to teaching thousands of students, he took dozens of American teachers to Japan for first-hand study; conducted hundreds of workshops across the country; translated the beginning volumes of Suzuki music, the "Listen and Play" series, into English, and served as the first president of the Suzuki Association of the Americas.
Currently, it is estimated that more than 350,000 children are learning according to Suzuki principles on violin, viola, cello, piano, guitar, flute, recorder, harp and bass.
Lured into a Legacy
Suzuki was no trick; the real trick had been how John Dryden Kendall became a world renowned violinist.
In the 1997 Post-Dispatch interview, he described how he had come to take up the instrument while growing up on a farm outside Kearney, Neb.
"I was tricked into it," he said of his 8-year-old self. He'd wanted to emulate a classmate who played clarinet in the school band, but his parents had other ideas.
"They came home one day with two fiddles, one very old and decrepit, the other new and beautiful, and asked which one I preferred to play. Of course, I pointed to the new one and said, 'That one!' So much for the clarinet," he said.
He mastered his new instrument and went on to earn an undergraduate degree at Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio in 1939 and, subsequently, a master's degree from Columbia Teacher's College. He received an honorary doctor of public service degree from Muskingum College in 2004.
After graduating from Oberlin, Mr. Kendall taught violin at Drury College in Springfield, Mo., until the United States entered World War II. Mr. Kendall, a conscientious objector, performed various assignments in Civilian Public Service during the war. Following his wartime service, he joined the faculty at Muskingum, serving as violin teacher, orchestra conductor and, finally, head of the music department. In 1963, he accepted an invitation to direct the string development program at the newly founded Edwardsville campus of SIU. He taught at SIUE until his retirement in 1994.
In retirement, he continued to give lessons and master classes until shortly before his death.
"He was still teaching kids with all kinds of energy," Kesler said. "He had 'Tuesdays with John' monthly and teachers from all over Michigan brought their students to him because he was such a beacon and great educator."
Leaving a Mark
Mr. Kendall's influence was wide and deep. He authored the booklet, "The Suzuki Violin Method in American Music Education." He was a consultant in the establishment of the St. Louis Symphony Music School's Suzuki program, a concertmaster of the St. Louis Philharmonic and the inspiration for numerous Suzuki music programs in the public schools.
He established the Senior Citizens Center in Edwardsville, and in 1990, Mr. Kendall and his wife initiated and provided seed money to convert an abandoned sewage lagoon into the Watershed Nature Center: 40 acres of wetlands, prairie, lakes and upland woods in Edwardsville. The preserve is now an active resource for environmental education.
In his memoir, "Recollections of a Peripatetic Pedagogue," published a few months before his death, Mr. Kendall credited his experiences as a Nebraska farm boy during the Dust Bowl for his unwavering commitment to the land and its resources.
He received numerous awards for his community and environmental service, but teaching music remained his first love.
"My father's dedication to teaching was a guiding force in his life," said Mr. Kendall's daughter, Nancy Foster. "As I grew up, he offered me the model of someone energetically and wholeheartedly pursuing his work in the service of an ideal - in his case, bringing music into the lives of people of every age.
Mr. Kendall was preceded in death by his parents, Herbert Kendall and Ruth Dryden Kendall, his sister Helen Jensen, and his brother, Bruce Kendall.
He was also preceded in death in 1998 by his wife Catherine "Kay" Wolff Kendall, a fellow violist, ceramist and author, whom he met at Oberlin and married in 1942.
In addition to his daughter, Nancy (William Foster) of Washington, D.C., Mr. Kendall's survivors include two sons, Stephen Kendall (Yoshiko), of Muncie, Ind., and Christopher Kendall (Susan Schilperoort), of Ann Arbor, Mich.
Contributions in Mr. Kendall's memory may be made to the Nature Preserve Foundation Inc., P.O. Box 843, Edwardsville, Ill. 62025.
Gloria Ross is the head of Okara Communications and the storywriter for AfterWords, an obituary-writing and production service.