Denise Villeré Schimek

The young first-chair Violinist already boasted of an expansive and impressive résumé. She had studied violin with Suzuki in Japan, with a concentration on how to teach his pedagogical method. That fellowship came on top of an already prestigious early musical career. At age 14, Denise Villeré became the youngest winner in the history of the Louisiana Concert of Strings— a feat she repeated for an unprecedented two years in a row. At University of Texas, she was asked to be first violin of the Austin Symphony and to conduct. Her skill at improvising on a score and playing without practice astonished musicians decades older than she.

At her young age, Denise Villeré had also had already assembled some of the most talented aspiring musicians as her students, both in her private lessons and as one of the driving forces behind the New Orleans Junior Philharmonic Society. Serving as both its vice president and as one of its principal teachers, and not yet 30, she had already put her imprint on the next generation of performers emerging from the Crescent City.

Perhaps equally as important as her pedagogy talents, and unusual for a musical prodigy, She possessed an uncanny ability to set people at ease, not an insignificant talent—especially when dealing with Bob Hope. Years later, she recounted how particular the great comic was, as he boarded the car with tissues surrounding his collar, so as not to allow his makeup—caked-on in the hotel suite—to dirty his collar. Hope demanded adept handling, yet only tolerated “a speak only one spoken to” submission. For a violinist in his orchestra, who would spend the remainder of the evening sitting less than six feet from Bob Hope, handling the occasionally mercurial star delicately proved doubly important.

By the end of the evening, though, Bob Hope singled out Denise Villeré for two compliments: her skill with the violin and with him. Hope would be just one of many famed artists, performers, and dignitaries whom she would host with aplomb. From her earliest adulthood, she demonstrated an uncanny talent to “read a room”, sometimes under stressful and unusual circumstances. In fact, as several of her friends described the knack in a more expansive fashion, “Denise made the room sparkle when she entered.” She could put most at ease and motivate many to step out of their comfort zones in ways that they never anticipated—and she was always creative in how she did it.

For example, upon returning to New Orleans from Japan, Denise Villeré attempted to interest parents in this Suzuki method for educating their young children in violin. However, the groundbreaking technique seemed a little too exotic for conservative New Orleanians. Nevertheless as the September 14, 1972 edition of the Times-Picayune observed, she found an innovative way to generate interest amongst skeptical parents. She held a demonstration performance of her current students, with a twist. The article ends with the words, “Miss Villeré invite(s)… Suzuki motorcyclists to ride their Suzukis to the concert.”

Throughout her life, Denise often took a prejudice and turned it into a marketing advantage—usually with a degree of panache. At the 50th anniversary of Le Petit Salon in 1974, she was invited to perform for the ladies’ intellectual society. They desired something different than the usual stuffy performances held in Vieux Carre home. According to newspaper accounts, she entered strumming her violin flanked by three troubadours, to the eternal delight of the members.

Peripatetic play on the violin became something of a trademark in her early years. Fronting for the New Orleans Symphony in the late 1970s as part of the “strolling violinists” accompanying the Kisko-Pop Mime Troop, Denise opened many of the symphonic outdoor and garden performances— walking about and engaging the crowd whilst she played classical compositions.

Her theatrical and organizing bent was put to work on a grand scale organizing one of the early Opera balls for the Women’s Guild of the New Orleans Opera Association. She not only played and conducted an orchestra throughout that evening, Denise headed the Guild’s membership committee and served as a principal organizer for that year’s “Viennese Opera Ball”. It would be the first of many Opera Balls which she would champion for the Guild in order to benefit performers and performances of Opera In the Crescent City.

Denise Villeré actively volunteered for many organizations ranging from historical societies like the US Daughters of 1812 and Founders of New Orleans to social groups such as the Orleans Club and the Grass Roots Garden Club. A 60-year member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), her Yuletide violin performances at their Christmas meetings became something of myth and legend to the membership. Regardless, this musician’s philanthropic activities never distracted her from her professional accomplishments.

Denise Villeré’s ability to brand musical talent led to the creation of the Velvet Sounds Orchestra at the end of 1984. She needed something different to attract the discerning New Orleans customer. While her demo tapes featured excerpts from the typical wedding/event fair, this classically trained concert violinist made sure to include some unexpected contemporary selections. After the blockbuster premiere of the movie “Ghostbusters” that previous summer, the theme of “Who you gonna call?” ended every demo tape which she distributed for the next 12 months. Denise not only highlighted the Ray Parker cinematic score as one of the musical performance pieces of which her musicians were capable, but she used a recording of the song as an invitation to hire her orchestra.

“The Denise Villeré Orchestra of the Velvet Sounds” became a regular entry in Nell Nolan’s society page. As a matter of fact, she not only actively helped plan the Overture to the Cultural Season in 1986 as a member of the committee, but her own orchestra played at the Elms Mansion that September evening—playing past midnight on Friday into the early hours of Saturday morning to kick off the events. That was just one of the multitude of cultural events which Denise and her musicians would headline— just as she at the same time would serve as one key facilitators for organization and development of the same organizations.

Denise performed for many organizations including the Alliance Francaise, the Arthritis Foundation, the Lafrenière Park Foundation, NOMA’s “Art in Bloom”, the Spring Fiesta’s celebratory parade commemorating the 160th anniversary of the Marquis de Lafayette’s visit to New Orleans, just to name a few. She once played violin in a witches’ hat trading barbs with ‘Naturally N'Awlins’ Frank Davis—as Denise and dear friend Margie Breeden ran this All Hallows Eve Ball to raise money for Cancer Crusaders. Once at a “Kingdom of the Nutcracker” Yuletide Ball fundraiser for the New Orleans City Ballet, Margie Case told the Times-Picayune that Denise Villeré’s orchestral performances kept her husband Larry dancing nonstop— quite an accomplishment as Case was the president of the ballet’s Pirouette auxiliary at the time.

Musical talent as well as hostess, she often did this double duty when it came to meetings of the New Orleans Academy of Ophthalmology, running these events for her spouse as well as performing at them. Undoubtedly, though, Denise’s favorite times to pick up the violin was when her physician-husband Dr Robert Schimek accompanied her on the piano. Himself a musical prodigy before opting for a career as one of the city’s leading ophthalmologists, numerous newspaper accounts talk about them playing together and what one society columnist described “a constant magical duet”.

Theirs was an extraordinary romance of two intellectually precocious polymaths. They traveled all over the world together, though Denise often expressed a degree of terror when Bob would insist upon flying them in his single-engine Cessna. Denise dubbed it the “toy plane”, and always insisted that they eat a stuffed po’boy before they left. As she would tell her friends, “I always wanted to make sure that I got my favorite last meal.”

That did not stop the Schimeks from flying themselves to most of the islands of the Caribbean, much less their multiple ground-based adventures throughout Latin America, Asia, and Europe. Their 39-year marriage is often held up as an example of true loving partnership of two extraordinary people.

Denise Villeré Schimek retired from active performance by the late 1990s, turning her attention to actively contributing her time and efforts on a nearly full-time basis to the city’s musical arts community. Amidst those years of philanthropy, one story sticks out. The famed Opera Guild home on Prytania St. was in active need of major repairs by 2003. Denise’s friend Yvonne Coe and her sister LouLou attempted to strategize upon not only how to raise money, but how to get their friends and fellow Women’s Guild Members to come and work on the house. Yvonne brought the wine and catered the meetings. LouLou made calls. Denise played Tom Sawyer.

Descriptions by the participants in the next two years of work resembled the opening chapters of the Mark Twain novel, where Sawyer convinces his friends that whitewashing a fence was the height of recreation. Denise proposed that the three friends extend the concept even further. They convinced some of New Orleans’ most prominent citizens to actually pay for the 'right to work' on the Opera Guild House. At least in a manner of speaking, that is. Contributions to the Women’s Guild along with volunteerism reached all time high levels.

Her cousin Anne Wolfe described Denise in this fashion, “She did not talk about herself. She was always interested in knowing how others were doing. This was a great quality of hers. She was [also] very clever. If you asked her a question which she did not want to answer she replied with a diverting question. One knew not to delve further.” Most importantly, Wolfe observed, “She loved to laugh! She loved life and jokes. I can still hear that big laugh of hers.”

Her friend Jan Wooten recounted how Denise helped inaugurate a tradition of joy out of a time of great sadness. After Wooten’s husband passed, Denise and their friend Mary Glas organized a trip for 15 friends to go to Pensacola to help cheer her up. The one-time trip immediately became a yearly occasion. “This we did for many years and loved our times together. We called ourselves the Raccoonettes. We sat around the dinner table wearing our coonskin hats enjoying good food, raccoon sounds, and appreciating our friendships. Played bridge, had skits, [and] danced on the deck.” Their laughter grew so loud that “one neighbor called the police on us”! Nevertheless, year after year, Denise’s friends were “enjoying the sun and sand. Denise and LouLou telling one Cajun joke after another in Cajun accents. We laughed till we cried.”

Her brother Maurice recounted that while the world often saw the perfectly behaved prodigy, Denise enjoyed behaving mischievously, from time to time. “The two of us once broke into McAllister Auditorium at Tulane to fly a little windup plane, and we were almost arrested by the Greenie Cops…When I would recount that story, years later, it gave her endless delight.”

Another friend, Barbara Bollinger remembered, “We shared a lot of laughter as well as ‘deep thoughts’. We were always, till the very last visit at the end of June, trying to figure out the world. It even became a joke between us. We would ask each other often in person and on all those more recent FaceTime calls if we finally had found PERSPECTIVE!! Always through music, friends, families, relationships, politics, travel, our homes, and the world situations, we’d ask often laughing as if it were a foolish question, ‘Well, do you have PERSPECTIVE now??????’”

“Denise’s heart was sooooo big,” Bollinger continued. “She was kind, compassionate, and had the best ear for listening I’ve EVER known. Not only that, she really, really listened and had such wise insights and suggestions. She helped you find your own answers. What a gift to all she was! Even though she was a fabulous violinist, I always told her she could easily have been a famous psychologist, psychiatrist, or counselor. Plus, she performed her gifts so lovingly [that] we all benefited greatly.”

Nancy MacArthur put it simply, “She was always kind and loving not just to her friends but to anyone she met.” Margie Breeden agreed, adding, “It never mattered where you were with Denise, she always had jokes to tell. However, she also always wanted to know how you were. She was so sweet, gracious, and caring.” Dena Jackson concluded, “Her generosity and her love--for me and all her friends and family--was enormous.” Friends Alma Dunlap and Alma Slatten Pettit as well as Rebeccka, Mary, and Bill Coe, all simply commented how her smile lit up a room.

On Thursday, August 29, 2024 at just before 1 pm, Denise Villeré Schimek breathed her last after a long illness. Predeceased by her mother, opera singer Elisabeth Wolfe Villeré, whom Denise often considered her inspiration, and her father noted attorney Plauché F. Villere, whom she often held up as her hero, as well as her closest confidants, husband Dr. Robert Schimek and her sister artist Elisabeth “LouLou” Villeré Tidmore. She leaves behind brothers Judge Plauché Villeré Jr. and Dr. Maurice Villeré; sister Lucie Lokkegaard; step-granddaughter Jennifer; niece-and-nephew-Godchildren Celeste Arnold and Christopher Tidmore; nephews Dean Arnold; Shay, Darcy, & Chris Villeré; as well as their children, beloved cousins, and dear friends, including her constant companions of her last few years: Susan Spiers, Audrial Wilson, and Nikki Dorsey.

On Thursday, September 12, 2024 at noon, a funeral mass will be celebrated at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd. Visitation for the public begins at 10 AM. In lieu of flowers, please contribute to the Denise Villeré Schimek Fund for Women Artists at the New Orleans Opera Association, online at https://neworleansopera.org/support/