A personal portrait of Frances Oman Clark through the eyes of her most prominent students and collaborators

Frances Clark was one of the most important piano pedagogues in the twentieth century. Having transformed the procedures of beginning instruction with the creation of her own method book series, she taught teachers how to prepare, present, and reinforce new musical concepts with children. Frances Clark has been described by her pedagogy students as intense, charismatic, and intelligent, and her influence on the discipline of piano pedagogy has had lasting effects; many of her former students, basing their work on her fundamental approach to teaching, have continued to contribute to the discipline. The primary purpose of this study was to describe her life’s work and to report the recollections of her most notable students, all of whom have made lasting contributions to piano pedagogy.