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Reviving an institution
  
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By STEVE MARK
As a young piano student growing up in Houston, Richard Dowling became a loyal patron of one of the true gems in the area music community. Wadler-Kaplan, located on Main Street near downtown, had since 1943 been a reliable destination for aficionados in need of hard-to-find sheet music and instruments.
Long after Dowling left Robert E. Lee High School and the University of Houston Moores School of Music, on his way to New York to forge a career as a world-renowned concert pianist, Dowling still relied on Wadler-Kaplan as his primary resource.
But in 2000, the store was sold and subsequently moved to a hard-to-find location northwest of downtown. Late last year, when word circulated the institution was on the verge of closing for good, Dowling did the only thing he could think of to save what he long considered his home away from home and a store he relied on even after living away from Houston for the past 20 years.
He bought the place.
“I always shopped at this store, and just didn’t want to let it die,” says Dowling.
Juggling his touring schedule, Dowling has shuttled back and forth from New York to Houston to move the store and establish a new location at Kirby and Southwest Freeway, under the new name of Dowling Music. Included in the new facility is a 100-seat recital hall that Dowling offers to budding pianists and teachers.
“I already knew this business from a publishing side,” says Dowling, who reports the store traffic has already doubled than in its previous location. “Every day we’re getting new people who never knew Houston had a sheet music store. Now they’re asking for pop and guitar music, too. We’re getting all the musical amateurs looking for the things the store always carried but (they) didn’t know where to get it.”
Starting or reincarnating a business in these times is always dicey. Dowling had some philosophy intertwined with the semi-risky plan.
“I’m not an economist, but when things go down economically, people tend to turn to things they can do for themselves,” Dowling says. “Instead of paying for paying for entertainment, they might take up playing the piano or the guitar. Or they’ll go back to their church choir. In this climate, music is still a constant. So, this business is not affected as much by the economic downturn.”
And, as Dowling adds, “Classical music is somewhat of a bottom feeder. Classical music CDs represent only three percent of all CDs sold, but whether there’s a hurricane ravaging on the ocean surface or whether it’s a clear, blue day, down at the bottom where it’s dark and cold, life goes on every day. Everybody has said for 100 years that classical music is going to die. Well, guess what — it’s still here. Classical music is the fabric of everyday life.”
Count Rodolfo Morales part of the legion that is thrilled with Dowling’s business endeavor. Morales, head of the music department at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, was a Wadler-Kaplan devotee before graduating from the school in 1994, and finds equal importance in the store on behalf of his students.
“I can’t tell you how relieved the piano teacher community is about this,” says Morales. “Richard is a great communicator of musical ideas. The city of Houston needs this.”
Dowling’s new venture is merely supplementary to his primary passion. Richard performs as many as 60 concerts a year worldwide as a guest soloist with orchestras or in solo recitals. His first love is American ragtime and jazz (the 1974 movie, “The Sting,” struck an immediate chord), though Chopin, Ravel and Gershwin are at the top of his personal playlist.
“When you play the piano, it has the largest repertoire of any instrument,” says Dowling. “There’s more music written for the piano than anything else. You can spend your lifetime as a full-time concert pianist and only scratch the surface of what’s available. So everybody has to find their own niche.”
Dowling, 44, is also a driving force behind the non-profit Piatigorsky Foundation, which arranges for classical performers to appear in locations across the United States that normally wouldn’t have access to classical concert music, such aslike community halls, schools and retirement homes.
“We bring music to places where classical music isn’t normally present,” says Dowling. “Instead of making people come to where we are, we go to where they are. People in Hewlett, Wyoming deserve to hear this music just as much as someone who goes to Carnegie Hall. And, all the performers do this for the love of the music.”
Whether providing classical music to small audiences as part of the foundation, or in huge concert halls in France, Italy or Germany, Dowling still feels a responsibility to perpetuate the musical heritage in his hometown. At the new second-story establishment that overlooks the Southwest Freeway, Richard stands in the glass-walled recital hall, poring over notes on his new German Steinway. He already has a long list of area talent waiting to follow him at the keyboard and doesn’t hesitate to pass along advice he learned from one of his noted mentors while at the University of Houston, Abbey Simon.
“Play the things you love, because those are the things you play the best,” Dowling was told. “Some people spend their lives mastering all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas. Some people concentrate on exclusively Rachmaninoff. But you can’t do it all — there simply aren’t enough hours in the day.”
A lesson, of sorts, not strictly limited to music.
Long after Dowling left Robert E. Lee High School and the University of Houston Moores School of Music, on his way to New York to forge a career as a world-renowned concert pianist, Dowling still relied on Wadler-Kaplan as his primary resource.
But in 2000, the store was sold and subsequently moved to a hard-to-find location northwest of downtown. Late last year, when word circulated the institution was on the verge of closing for good, Dowling did the only thing he could think of to save what he long considered his home away from home and a store he relied on even after living away from Houston for the past 20 years.
He bought the place.
“I always shopped at this store, and just didn’t want to let it die,” says Dowling.
Juggling his touring schedule, Dowling has shuttled back and forth from New York to Houston to move the store and establish a new location at Kirby and Southwest Freeway, under the new name of Dowling Music. Included in the new facility is a 100-seat recital hall that Dowling offers to budding pianists and teachers.
“I already knew this business from a publishing side,” says Dowling, who reports the store traffic has already doubled than in its previous location. “Every day we’re getting new people who never knew Houston had a sheet music store. Now they’re asking for pop and guitar music, too. We’re getting all the musical amateurs looking for the things the store always carried but (they) didn’t know where to get it.”
Starting or reincarnating a business in these times is always dicey. Dowling had some philosophy intertwined with the semi-risky plan.
“I’m not an economist, but when things go down economically, people tend to turn to things they can do for themselves,” Dowling says. “Instead of paying for paying for entertainment, they might take up playing the piano or the guitar. Or they’ll go back to their church choir. In this climate, music is still a constant. So, this business is not affected as much by the economic downturn.”
And, as Dowling adds, “Classical music is somewhat of a bottom feeder. Classical music CDs represent only three percent of all CDs sold, but whether there’s a hurricane ravaging on the ocean surface or whether it’s a clear, blue day, down at the bottom where it’s dark and cold, life goes on every day. Everybody has said for 100 years that classical music is going to die. Well, guess what — it’s still here. Classical music is the fabric of everyday life.”
Count Rodolfo Morales part of the legion that is thrilled with Dowling’s business endeavor. Morales, head of the music department at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, was a Wadler-Kaplan devotee before graduating from the school in 1994, and finds equal importance in the store on behalf of his students.
“I can’t tell you how relieved the piano teacher community is about this,” says Morales. “Richard is a great communicator of musical ideas. The city of Houston needs this.”
Dowling’s new venture is merely supplementary to his primary passion. Richard performs as many as 60 concerts a year worldwide as a guest soloist with orchestras or in solo recitals. His first love is American ragtime and jazz (the 1974 movie, “The Sting,” struck an immediate chord), though Chopin, Ravel and Gershwin are at the top of his personal playlist.
“When you play the piano, it has the largest repertoire of any instrument,” says Dowling. “There’s more music written for the piano than anything else. You can spend your lifetime as a full-time concert pianist and only scratch the surface of what’s available. So everybody has to find their own niche.”
Dowling, 44, is also a driving force behind the non-profit Piatigorsky Foundation, which arranges for classical performers to appear in locations across the United States that normally wouldn’t have access to classical concert music, such aslike community halls, schools and retirement homes.
“We bring music to places where classical music isn’t normally present,” says Dowling. “Instead of making people come to where we are, we go to where they are. People in Hewlett, Wyoming deserve to hear this music just as much as someone who goes to Carnegie Hall. And, all the performers do this for the love of the music.”
Whether providing classical music to small audiences as part of the foundation, or in huge concert halls in France, Italy or Germany, Dowling still feels a responsibility to perpetuate the musical heritage in his hometown. At the new second-story establishment that overlooks the Southwest Freeway, Richard stands in the glass-walled recital hall, poring over notes on his new German Steinway. He already has a long list of area talent waiting to follow him at the keyboard and doesn’t hesitate to pass along advice he learned from one of his noted mentors while at the University of Houston, Abbey Simon.
“Play the things you love, because those are the things you play the best,” Dowling was told. “Some people spend their lives mastering all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas. Some people concentrate on exclusively Rachmaninoff. But you can’t do it all — there simply aren’t enough hours in the day.”
A lesson, of sorts, not strictly limited to music.
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