Gifts in Action - James Vaky

MEET JAMES VAKY

James Russell Vaky, musician, artist, and poet, has enjoyed a long career, from coast to coast, as a teacher and accomplished pianist and organist. He began piano lessons in 1919 at the age of eight. He later learned that his first teacher, Alethea Foster, was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Foster, music instructors at the University of Illinois for the academic year, 1894-95, one year before the School of Music was officially established. Mr. Foster had served as director during that year.

Vaky entered the School of Music in 1929 and played under John Philip Sousa in 1931, later enrolling in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He received a Bachelor of Arts in English and German in 1933 and continued to perform professionally while studying painting at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. and at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles where he taught English at the Page Military Academy. His first book of poetry was published in 1973 and his fourth when he was almost ninety.

HOW HE GAVE

He established the James Russell Vaky Merit Scholarship in Music in 2004. The scholarship supports undergraduate students who are enrolled as piano, organ, cello, or harp majors and is to be rotated among the specified instrumental disciplines each year.

Story courtesy UIUC School of Music.