Longtime Piano Cleveland friend and patron, Clara Rankin passed away earlier this week. Lifetimes—and the things to which we devote ourselves within those lifetimes—are finite. While Clara will remain an important part of Piano Cleveland’s history, we are a small part of her legacy, which spans many decades and touched countless lives, especially here in Cleveland.
Clara came from a home filled with a love of music—and instruments. Her mother, Edith, and older brother, Frank, both played the piano, which resided in the living room next to a xylophone. Her younger brother, Tom, took up the trumpet and drums for which he “was relegated most of the time to the basement.” When the family took a break from practicing their respective instruments, Clara’s father, Frank E. Taplin Sr., often spun a record on their Victrola by opera singer Enrico Caruso.
Clara’s instrument of choice was her voice—and anyone who knew her could recognize the voice that often graced house parties with a song late in the evening, the same voice that eloquently championed the arts in Cleveland, and later in life, the voice that spoke softly and powerfully for the residents of Hopewell Therapeutic Farm. As Clara put it, a “steady voice and steady legs,” took her from the high school glee club to being a soloist with the Yale Glee Club and eventually led to studying voice in New England. Following in her mother’s footsteps, Clara attended Smith College where she served as the student government president and continued singing as a member of the all-female acapella group, the Smiffenpoofs.
When Clara returned to Cleveland she became involved with the Women’s Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, beginning a relationship with the museum that spanned over five decades and included tenure on the Board of Trustees. A lifelong gardener, she joined the Shaker Lakes Graden Club and shared her depth of knowledge with fellow green thumbs. She also studied voice with Marie Kraft, a frequent soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra and teacher at the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM). Clara later joined the board of CIM where she served for 53 years before being elected Trustee Emerita—a role she held for two more decades.
When it comes to serving on boards and within communities, people will either take time to do something or they make time to do something. With as many organizations to which Clara devoted herself to, it’s fair to say she was the sort of person who made time for the causes she loved. In the midst of Clara’s half-century of CIM board tenure, a new front of classical musicianship opened up in our midwest City of Light—the Robert Casadesus International Piano Competition that would evolve into the world-famous Cleveland International Piano Competition. As she often did, Clara made the time to foster our organization and realize its full potential. By 1981, she was an active member of the Friends group of the Casadesus International Piano Competition recognizing the impact the competition could have on Cleveland. She joined the organization’s board, saying, “It was exciting to have Cleveland on the international scene.” Later, she served on the President’s Council.
In 2024, we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Cleveland International Piano Competition. During the year-long celebration of our history, we made many new memories with familiar friends—holding concerts in Shaker Heights, partnering with Severance Music Center and the Cleveland Museum of Art, hosting faculty from CIM for free performances. Of course, Clara’s presence—her legacy—is that Cleveland has myriad arts organizations who collaborate and enrich the lives of its people. For many of us, a highlight was seeing Clara at 106-years-old attend one of our Piano Cleveland Live concerts at the Museum of Art with her daughter-in-law and then-Piano Cleveland board chair, Beth Rankin. As she always did, Clara made time for us.