Cayvan String Instrument Scholarship
Mr. and Mrs. Leo L. Cayvan were long-time supporters of the Calvin Music Department- funding several music scholarships and donating an excellent collection of stringed instruments to Calvin. This collection includes a small number of professional-quality instruments that are made available to incoming and returning students as non-monetary scholarship awards. The awards, which are based on achievement and need, are renewable, pending review by a Music Faculty committee. Students who are awarded these [non-monetary] scholarships are required to perform with the Calvin Orchestra and take private lessons.
The Cayvan Legacy
“Uncle Leo” was never a member of the Calvin College faculty, yet he must be counted among the most significant influences in the history of the school’s music department. He was born in Boston in 1879 and was considered a child prodigy on the violin. His career went in a different direction, however, as he earned a degree in Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and moved to Grand Rapids in 1909 to work as a food chemist. Uncle Leo continued a life of music nonetheless, including a stint as principal violist of the Grand Rapids Symphony in its earliest days. His involvement with Calvin College began in the 1920s, when he played in the orchestra for the Calvin Oratorio Society's annual presentations of Messiah, but it was the 1930s when he began 
the famous string chamber music sessions. Calvin students would converge on his home on a weekly basis over the course of years in order to play and talk about music with their venerated mentor. These sessions are the dear memories of many Calvin College alums, yet Uncle Leo would make three more enormous contributions to the Calvin Music Department. During his latter years and finally in his will (he passed from this life in 1966), Leo Cayvan donated his monumental collections of recordings, sheet music and musical instruments to Calvin College. To this day, students continue to make use of these fine collections as well as enjoying the Llewellyn L. Cayvan String Scholarships, several of which are awarded to outstanding music students every year.
The Cayvan String Instrument Collection
The original instruments of the collection have been augmented by contributions from alumni and other friends of the Calvin Music Department as well as by purchases of additional instruments through various funding sources. The number one instrument and bow in each category ranges in value from $26,000 to $40,000, including:
* Violin made by Sergio Peresson in 1974; bow branded R. Dotschail
* Unlabeled viola made in Prague in the mid-18th century; bow branded A. Husson-Paris
* Hungarian cello labeled Samuel Nemessanyi; bow branded Heliom Cirilo
* Bass made by Prescott, circa 1810; French bow branded Prochniak, German bow branded Jose Bottoni
Other instruments in the collection are valued in the $5,000 to $10,000 range, including a violin labeled Gagliano (bow labeled Tourte), violas labeled Kloz and Gionaro and a bass labeled Wilfer.
Interested students should fill out an application for the Cayvan String Instrument Scholarship.
