Jerry Pierce papers

Jerry Pierce, an American clarinetist, saxophonist, teacher, writer, and avid collector, was born in 1937 in Muncie, Indiana. He grew up in the Midwest and attended Indiana University and Ball State University. He studied clarinet with Henry Gulick, Jerry Stowell, Robert McGinnis, Bernard Portnoy, and Daniel Bonade.

In 1956 he moved to New Hope, Pennsylvania to study clarinet with Bonade. This began a life-long friendship that lasted until Bonade's death in 1976. After Bonade's death, his widow, Maude La Charme, gave Pierce the majority of Bonade's personal papers, photographs, and other memorabilia. Based on these items and his own experiences, Pierce wrote the four-part series, "The Bonade Legacy," which appeared in The Clarinet, the journal of the International Clarinet Association. The articles were the first comprehensive examination of Bonade's history.

As a performer, Pierce appeared with both classical and jazz groups. He played clarinet with the Virginia Symphony, Birmingham Symphony, and Anderson Symphony, and saxophone with Doug Mulligan and Russ Carlyle. From 1967 until the 1980s, he taught clarinet at Anderson University and Marion College.

After helping to establish the International Clarinet Association, he was elected President in 1980 and served until 1986. During his Presidency he started "Pierce's Potpourri," a regular column in The Clarinet that he continued until his death in 1994.

Pierce was a diligent correspondent and avid collector. He searched worldwide for musical scores, often unknown or obscure, and was known to openly share scores from his personal collection with others. Pierce died in 1994. The testimonies of friendship and loss that appeared in "Jerry D. Pierce (1937-1994): A Tribute" in the November/December 1994 issue of The Clarinet are profound.