A Musical Gift

The Albino Gorno Memorial Music Library is the new home of a generous gift to the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) of a Steinway piano from the family of its original owner, Ida Belle Ulmer Jenner.

Mrs. Jenner was born in Cincinnati on August 20, 1872, and graduated with an Artist's Diploma from the Cincinnati Conservatory in 1898. She lived all her life in Cincinnati. As a student in the late 1880s, she played a "challenge" concert at Carnegie Hall and was subsequently invited to begin touring as a concert pianist. However, her father, Henry Ulmer, thought this to be an "unfit" occupation for a young woman to travel around the country away from her family. He promised her that if she would forego a touring career he would give her a Steinway piano of her liking. She agreed, and he purchased a Steinway Parlor Grand that was built in 1889.

Ida Belle Ulmer Jenner taught at the Cincinnati Conservatory for over 50 years. During those years, she met and married Clark Phillip Jenner, a dentist nine years her junior. Dr. Jenner died in 1938, leaving Ida a widow. She never remarried.

Pianist Curtis Smith. In fall 2012, he will be a senior at CCM majoring in piano performance.

According to the 1932-33 catalog of the Conservatory, Mrs. Jenner studied with Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, gave frequent recitals, and had a successful pedagogical career. She was a pupil of George Krueger and Theodore Bohlman, and in turn was the teacher of many widely known figures of the musical world and the stage. David Niven was one of her students, as was "Tennessee" Ernie Ford. She was active in the Conservatory Alumnal Association and was one of its original members.

In January 1960, Mrs. Jenner was the victim of an auto accident as she crossed Reading Road near her home at the corner of Avondale Avenue. Her prized Steinway piano was inherited by her family and moved to Oregon. For a time, it was located on Maui in the Hawaiian Islands. The piano has been rebuilt twice, most recently in the 1990s after its return to Oregon.

In the mid-2000s, it was appraised at a value of nearly $35,000. When then-owner John T. Ulmer heard that CCM had been designated an all-Steinway school, he felt it very important that the college should have this historic piano once used during its early years by a Cincinnati Conservatory teacher. We are very grateful to Jack Ulmer for this wonderful gift.

Plans are underway to stage a performance in the CCM Library on this beautiful instrument in the very near future.

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