Shep Resnik discovered the clarinet as a young boy. Because his parents could not afford to buy him an instrument, his school loaned him one, and he would practice for hours at a time in the attic of his home. He made the all-state band in New Jersey, and in high school he performed in a traveling Polish dance band, which gave him his first paying gigs. He saved enough money from his playing to put himself through Rutgers University College of Pharmacy. Then it was into the Army, where he played in a military band. After that, he joined the Garden State Philharmonic in Toms River, New Jersey, serving as their principal clarinetist for over thirty years. At public school concerts, where the orchestra often performed, Shep would always linger afterward to talk about music with the students, giving them complete lessons in the swabbing, blowing, and fingering of a clarinet.

Shep played the clarinet at many family gatherings, and he played at all three of his sons’ weddings. He and his wife, Vera, spent many summers at their home in Warren, and it was during those seasons that he played with Green Mountain Swing—usually on alto sax, but he would pull out his original instrument for clarinet solos in tunes like Begin the Beguine and Let’s Dance. Because of his enthusiasm for and deep knowledge of swing, he was a natural to direct the band. His specialties were the okay signs given after particularly good solos, his stern warnings against noodling (“Practice at home!”), and a graceful, restrained conducting style that had just enough body English in it to inspire the band. Every player benefited from his experience, his musicianship, and his humor, and we treasure the memory of his final performances with us in Montpelier and Waitsfield before his death in the fall of 2008.

As one who found boundless pleasure in music of all kinds, Shep would be delighted to know that his memory lives on in The Green Mountain Swing Scholarship—an award designed to help young people know the same joy that he knew all of his life.