Lucien Martin

Lucien Martin was a Canadian violinist, conductor, and composer born (in Montreal) on May 30, 1908.  He had a brief concertizing career and later worked as an orchestral player, though not a concertmaster.  That, in itself, is unusual.  His first lessons were with his father, who was also a violin maker.  He began playing in public at age 7.  At age 9 he had already earned a gold medal from the National Conservatory in Montreal at which he had been enrolled for two years.  His teachers were Albert Chamberland (1917-1920), Alfred De Seve (1920-1923), and Camille Couture (1923-1925) – Camille Couture was also a highly respected violin maker who had made copies of the violins used by Jacques Thibaud, Eugene Ysaye, Jan Kubelik, and Adolfo Betti.  Martin began playing professionally - concertizing, mostly in the U.S. - in 1925.  He was 17 years old.  From 1928 he continued his studies with Couture for about a year.  He then went to Paris to study with Maurice Hayot at the Normal School for Music (Ecole Normale de Musique), not to be confused with the Paris Conservatory.  In 1933, after receiving his “license” in the art of violin performance, Martin returned to Canada and gave several recitals here and there.  He became a member (first violin section) of the Montreal Symphony in 1935.  He performed Bruch’s first concerto with that orchestra on February 4, 1935.  In 1936, he again traveled to Paris for further study with George Enesco.  Martin returned to Montreal in 1937 – Enesco left Paris to conduct the New York Philharmonic for a couple of years beginning in 1937.  After that, Martin played second violin in the Dubois String Quartet for a year – unfortunately, the quartet was disbanded in 1938, when the founding member died.  Martin was then 30 years old.  In the late 1930s and early 1940s Martin played for numerous radio broadcasts.  I do not know if recordings of those broadcasts were made and are archived somewhere.  He also conducted several concerts at about the same time.  Only one of his compositions – a song - was published during his lifetime.  A popular source which is often very unreliable says that Martin owned a 1769 Ferdinando Gagliano violin from 1972 to 1982, which is, of course, impossible.  None of the sources I found mentioned whether Martin ever taught violin anywhere.  On October 29, 1950, Lucien Martin died.  He was 42 years old.  

Lorand Fenyves

Lorand Fenyves was a Hungarian violinist and teacher born (in Budapest) on February 20, 1918.  He is known for having spent much of his career in Canada and is credited with helping establish an entire generation of musicians in that country.  His teachers in Hungary included Jeno Hubay and Zoltan Kodaly, internationally known violinist and composer, respectively.  Though he made his professional debut at age 13, he graduated from the Franz Liszt Academy in 1934, at age 16.  Two years later, having been recruited by Bronislaw Huberman, he left Europe for Israel to become a founding member of the Palestine Symphony (Israel Philharmonic.)  He soon became its concertmaster.  He was 18 years old.  In 1940, he helped found the Israel Conservatory and Academy of Music in Tel Aviv.  He also organized the Israel String Quartet, originally known as the Fenyves String Quartet.  He moved to Switzerland in 1957 (at age 39) where he was concertmaster of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and violin professor at the Geneva Conservatory.  He visited Canada in the summer of 1963.  The following year, he accepted a one-year position at the University of Toronto.  He actually remained there until his retirement in 1983.  In 2003, the University gave a recital in honor of his 85th birthday – a common thing for universities to do for their revered music professors.  After his retirement from the University of Toronto, Fenyves began teaching (in 1985) at the University of Western Ontario.  Nevertheless, he also gave masterclasses at music centers around the world and performed as violin soloist with well-known conductors and orchestras numerous times.  You can listen to Fenyves play a Bach Sonata in this YouTube audio file, recorded when he was about 70 years old.  Among his pupils are Tasmin Little, Elissa Lee, Scott St John, and Lynn Kuo.  Fenyves died (in Zurich, Switzerland) on March 23, 2004, at age 86.  The 1720 (circa 1720) Stradivarius violin which he owned – now known as the Fenyves Strad – was sold at auction in 2006 for about $1,500,000 USD.  Fenyves had purchased it in 1961.  

Lynn Kuo

Lynn Kuo is a contemporary Canadian violinist, teacher, and lecturer with a very successful and versatile career.  In the orchestral world, she is the Assistant Concertmaster of the orchestra of the National Ballet of Canada.  It is a prestigious position.  Not too many people know that Joseph Joachim was assistant concertmaster in Leipzig under Felix Mendelssohn, Zino Francescatti was assistant concertmaster with a French orchestra prior to dedicating most of his career to touring, and Arnold Steinhardt (first violinist of the Guarneri Quartet) was assistant concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra.  In the concert world, Kuo has already toured Europe, including Austria, Hungary, Wales, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Ukraine, both in recital and with many major orchestras.  As most concert violinists do, she also performs with many chamber music ensembles and has frequently programmed the works of several modern composers, whom she champions.  She has also served as guest concertmaster of Pinchas Zukerman’s orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, one of the premier orchestras of Canada.  Her music studies began in her native St John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, at age 7.  However, her first instrument was not the violin – it was the piano.  Among her first teachers were Mark Latham, Nancy Dahn, and Eileen Kearns.  Kuo later attended summer music festivals in Aspen (Colorado), Kent-Blossom (Ohio, USA), Quebec, Banff, and Schleswig-Holstein (in Northern Germany.)  Her later teachers in Toronto included Erika Raum, Mayumi Seiler, and Lorand Fenyves (pupil of Jeno Hubay and one of the original members of the Israel Philharmonic, having personally been invited by Bronislaw Huberman.)  As do other contemporary violinists – Nigel Kennedy, Itzhak Perlman, Alexander Markov, and Miranda Cuckson among them - Kuo does not limit herself to purely classical music.  Her collaborations with artists in other genres are well-known.  Many of Kuo’s performances have been broadcast on radio and television as well, in Canada and overseas.  She has also been chosen to present world premieres of several new works.  She has recorded for the NAXOS label and her new CD – simply titled LOVE: Innocence, Passion, Obsession - is scheduled to be released soon.  Critics have written that “her technique appears flawless and her playing is dramatic, both rousing and melancholy.”  You can hear for yourself here.  She also has a Facebook page here where she documents some of her career events - she recently received her DMA degree from the University of Toronto.  Kuo plays an 1888 Vincenzo Postiglione violin.  

Eugene Kash

Eugene Kash (Eugene Leon Kash) was a Canadian violinist, violist, conductor, and teacher born (in Toronto, Canada) on May 1, 1912.  He was one of the lesser-known students of Bronislaw Huberman and Otakar Sevcik and was a champion of childrens’ music education programs.  He was also the father of children who became actors – in the style of Efrem Zimbalist.  His earliest violin studies were with Luigi Von Kunits (Serbian violinist and first conductor of the Toronto Symphony) until about 1928.  He then went to the CurtisInstitute, where he studied with Albert Meiff (who also taught Iso Briselli and Oscar Shumsky) until 1931.  Thereafter, he studied in Europe (with Sevcik and Huberman) until about 1934.  He was then 22 years old with 16 years of study under his fingers, so to speak.  However, he continued to study (sporadically) with William Primrose (London), Kathleen Parlow (Toronto), and Dmitri Dounis (New York.)  (For a time, it was the custom of some students at the Curtis Institute to take lessons from D.C. Dounis, although they did it surreptitiously.  Those who got caught were disciplined or expelled from Curtis.  I don’t know whether Kash was one of those students.)  He played in the Toronto Symphony (and the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s radio orchestras) from 1934 until 1942, presumably in the first violin section.  Kash was concertmaster of the Ottawa Philharmonic from 1944 until 1950, when he became its conductor.  He was 38 years old.  He remained in Ottawa, as conductor, until 1957.  Nevertheless, he had remained active as a recitalist from the beginning of his professional career.  From 1946, he began developing educational music programs (or concert series) especially suited to children.  CBC television ran a series from 1955 to 1958 which Kash developed called “The Magic of Music.”  Almost simultaneously, Leonard Bernstein in New York was lecturing for the Omnibus children’s music series with the Symphony of the Air, sponsored and broadcast at various times by the CBS, NBC, or ABC TV networks.  From 1961 to 1975, Kash took part in the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico.  In the early 1960s, he served as conductor of youth concerts in Connecticut (with the Fairfield County Symphony) and Montreal (with the Montreal Symphony.)  Kash taught in various places during his career; among them are the Music Academy (Philadelphia – 1967 to 1971), York University (Toronto – 1971 to 1973), and the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto – 1975 to 2004.)  Kash was also conductor of the Etobicoke Philharmonic (a community orchestra in Toronto) from 1975 to 1985.  One source says that he was at one time conductor of the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Canada) but that information is quite inaccurate.  The same source states that he taught at the Curtis Institute, which is also erroneous.  Up until 2002, Kash was still performing in public.  His violin of choice, acquired in 1949, was a G.B. Guadagnini of 1753.  Eugene Kash died (in Toronto) on March 6, 2004, at age 91.  

Hyman Bress

Hyman Bress was a Canadian violinist born (in Cape Town, South Africa) on June 30, 1931 (Heifetz was 30 years old.)  He is known for having recorded the violin concertos of Joseph Joachim and Ernest Bloch, probably the first to do so, among many other obscure works.  He was also the first violinist of the Montreal String Quartet in its third incarnation in 1955.  It was composed of Hyman Bress, Mildred Goodman, Otto Joachim, and Walter Joachim (cellist and brother of Otto Joachim, violist.)  In fact, on May 21, 1956, the quartet played the premiere of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould’s string quartet (Gould’s Opus 1), a work that has kindly been described as being serious and pensive.  Bress later recorded a series of five records for Folkways Records entitled The Violin.  (Folkways is a special project of the Smithsonian Institution.)  The series covered material from the Baroque to the Twentieth Century (1960s) and included one of his own electronic compositions – the Fantasy for Violin, Piano, and electric tape.  (One of the pieces recorded in this series is the Sarasate Zapateado played at the fastest tempo I have ever heard.)  He first studied with his father and gave his first public performance in Cape Town (South Africa) at age nine with the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra.  After that debut, he performed throughout South Africa for a time.  In 1946, at age 15, he began studying with Ivan Galamian at the Curtis Institute (Philadelphia) and continued with Galamian until 1951.  In 1951, he moved to Canada and established himself in Montreal, giving recitals and playing in radio as well (mostly for the CBC.)  He performed regularly there, in the U.S., and in Europe, eventually founding the Montreal String Quartet in Canada with the Joachim brothers.  He became concertmaster, at age 27, of the Montreal Symphony for one season (1958-59) then continued his concertizing career as a soloist, often with major orchestras like the Berlin Philharmonic and the London Symphony.  He first appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic on April 1, 1968, playing a work by Boris Blacher.  Reinhard Peters was on the podium.  (Bress was never a guest artist with the New York Philharmonic.)  He also continued playing with the quartet (until 1963.)  A Canadian newspaper reported that in 1966, Bress became the first Canadian violinist to tour Russia, though it seems unlikely.  In 1973 he toured the Far East.  He settled in Europe for a time but returned to Canada in the 1980s.  By this time, he was no longer playing, being prevented by what has been called mental illness.  He was 55 years old.  Bress premiered several works which are no longer heard and will most likely not be heard again for some time, including Violet Archer’s violin concerto, Udo Kasemets’ concerto, and Kelsey Jones’ Introduction and Fugue.  In New York, he presented his Fantasy in 1962 (or thereabout) while the score of the piece was being shown on a large screen as it was being played – one of the first instances of a multi-media concert presentation.  YouTube has a sound recording of his – the Tchaikovsky concerto – which you can listen to by pressing here.  His recordings are not hard to find on the internet.  Hyman Bress died on October 30, 1995, in Montreal, largely forgotten, at age 64. 

Kathleen Parlow

Kathleen Parlow was a Canadian violinist and teacher born (in Calgary) on September 20, 1890 (Stravinsky was 8 years old.)  Today, although there is an abundance of information about her everywhere, she is largely forgotten.  Her biography reads – at least somewhat – like that of Camilla Urso and Guila Bustabo combined.  She never actually studied in Canada.  As a concert violinist, she struggled to make ends meet and finally settled for a teaching career after thirty years of concertizing.  Parlow was said to possess a sweet, legato sound that made her seem to be playing with a nine-foot bow and was admired for her effortless playing.  At age four, she began her violin studies with a cousin, Conrad Coward, in San Francisco (USA). At age six, she gave her first recital.  Still in San Francisco, she continued her studies with Henry Holmes (pupil of Louis Spohr), who helped her obtain playing engagements in England, where he had many good contacts.  The expenses for her (and her mother’s) trip and stay in England were paid by Harriet Pullman Carolan of San Francisco, a wealthy admirer.  After getting settled there, she played at Wigmore Hall (then known as Bechstein Hall), Buckingham Palace, and other places.  She also performed with the London Symphony.  She was fifteen years old.  In 1906, through the sponsorship of a Canadian industrialist (Lord Strathcona – also known as Donald Alexander Smith), she travelled to Russia for further study.  She became the first foreign student enrolled at the St Petersburg Conservatory.  Her teacher there was Leopold Auer.  Her classmates included Efrem Zimbalist (founder of the Curtis Institute) and Mishel Piastro (for a time, concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony.)  She gave nine solo recitals in St Petersburg and learned Alexander Glazunov's violin concerto which she subsequently performed frequently.  (Glazunov was then the Director of the Conservatory.)  Glazunov later chose her to play his concerto at the Ostend Music Festival in 1907, at which he was a featured composer.  She also appeared in Finland several times and even met Jean Sibelius (some sources claim she never met him) whose concerto she often played.  Also in 1907, she made her debut in Berlin, thereafter touring in Europe.  Parlow later said that, after expenses, her Berlin debut netted her exactly ten pounds.  She did not know it at the time but this was an indication of what her future would be like.  She would study with Auer each summer in order to prepare additional repertoire for subsequent tours.  With time, that repertoire became very extensive.  It has been said that she played more than 375 concerts between 1908 and 1915.  In Norway, Einar Bjornson – part of the well-to-do Bjornson family - gave her the Viotti Guarnerius (1735) to play on (1908 - 1962.)  She also several times played for the King and Queen of Norway.  Her first tour in North America began in 1910.  In 1911, the New York Herald declared her “one of the phenomena of the musical world,” on a par with Mischa Elman.  She also made her first appearance with the Toronto Symphony in February of 1911 – the first of many.  Between 1912 and 1925 she lived in England (at Meldreth, near Cambridge) and continued her touring, including tours to China, the U.S., Korea, and Japan (where she recorded for the Nipponophone Company.)  In 1912, she played a benefit concert in New York for the survivors of the Titanic disaster.  She was highly praised everywhere she played.  Her mother, to whom she was very close, accompanied her on all her tours.  She recorded several small pieces for Columbia Records between 1914 and 1916.  As far as I know, she never recorded after that.  Between 1917 and 1919 she was not able to tour outside England due to travel restrictions (due to the First World War.)  In 1920, she toured the U.S. for the fifth time and made her first radio broadcast (from Seattle, in 1922.)  Considering that her prospects in England were not as good as they had been on the Continent of Europe, they (Parlow and her mother) decided to move to San Francisco (U.S.A. - 1926).  It has been stated that she suffered a mental (nervous) breakdown in 1927, perhaps due to a broken personal relationship.  They then took a year off, about which – understandably - little is known.  In 1929, she toured Mexico – travelling without her mother for the first time.  She was 39 years old.  Despite playing many concerts there and receiving very high praise, financially, she barely broke even.  She later told an interviewer that, when things were very hard, she and her mother had talked about her getting a job to ensure their security for the future but that she just couldn’t do it.  She ended up teaching at Mills College (Oakland, California) from 1929 to 1936.  They moved to New York in 1936.  From 1935 to 1941 she taught in Massachusetts during the summers.  In 1941 she was offered a job at the Toronto College of Music and began making appearances with orchestras, a duo she formed with pianist Ernest MacMillan, the Canadian Trio (with Zara Nelsova, cellist, and Macmillan), and a string quartet – the Parlow String Quartet which was active for fifteen years.  During this time, she was being assisted financially by Godfrey Ridout (Canadian composer, teacher, writer, and conductor) and other friends.  In October of 1959 she was made head of the string department at the London College of Music (Western Ontario, Canada.)  Among her pupils were Victor Feldbrill, Joseph Pach, and Marjorie Edwards.  In 1982, the CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation) broadcast a three-part radio series about her career.  The Kathleen Parlow Scholarship was set up with the proceeds from the sale of her Guarnerius and other money from her estate.  YouTube has a few videos of her playing (sound only), one of which contains exceptionally fast trills – faster than Heifetz , Prihoda, or Rabin.  Parlow died on August 19, 1963, at age 72.

Leila Josefowicz

Leila Josefowicz (Leila Bronia Josefowicz) is a Canadian violinist born on October 20, 1977 (Heifetz was 76 years old.) She is an intense genius who is sometimes not well-understood. She also plays the violin stupendously well. She has been criticized for her physicality while playing but you will not likely find someone performing with greater conviction, precision, and audacity. She began violin lessons at age three. By age 8, she was studying with Robert Lipsett in Los Angeles. She entered the Curtis Institute of Music (Philadelphia) at age 13 where she studied with Jaime Laredo, Joseph Gingold, Jascha Brodsky, and Felix Galimir, among others. By this time, she was already concertizing. She graduated from Curtis in 1997. There is an impressive video of her (on YouTube) playing Paganini with the Boston Pops (conducted by John Williams) at a very young age. Her Carnegie Hall debut was in 1994. Her discography - even this early in her career - is fairly extensive.  Josefowicz was the recipient of a no-strings-attached MacArthur grant in 2008. (Jazz violinist Regina Carter received one in 2006.)  She has played a 1739 and a 1724 Guarnerius.

Corey Cerovsek

Corey Cerovsek is a Canadian violin prodigy born on April 24, 1972 (Heifetz was 71 years old.) In addition, he is a mathematician and accomplished pianist, having received advanced degrees in both music and math by age 16. Having already studied violin for a number of years, he began studying with Josef Gingold at Indiana University at age 12. He made his orchestral debut with the Calgary Philharmonic in 1981 and has been concertizing since age 16. Although an extraordinary performer and artist, he falls into that group of violinists who, for whatever reason, have not scaled the heights of public or critical recognition – Eugene Fodor, Phillipe Quint, and Vadim Gluzman come easily to mind.

Wood

Jasper Wood is a Canadian concert violinist born on April 29, 1974. He first played in public at age five. He studied with David and Linda Cerone at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has been concertizing since 1996 and now teaches at the University of British Columbia. He has also recorded many CDs on various labels and there is at least one video of his playing on YouTube. I do not know if he plays a Stradivarius or a Guarnerius or some other instrument. You can look that up if you want to.

Dubeau

Angèle Dubeau is a Canadian violinist born on March 24, 1962. She studied at Juilliard and at the Montreal Conservatory of Music. She is best known for her work with the group called La Pieta. This ensemble is an all-female string band. As far as I know, she still plays the Rosiers Stradivarius violin from 1733. There are many CDs of her playing solo and in ensemble.

Otto Joachim

Otto Joachim was a Canadian violist, violinist, composer, teacher, conductor, and instrument maker, born in Dusseldorf, Germany, on October 13, 1910. He studied violin from 1916 until 1931. I have no idea what he did between 1931 and 1934, but I do know that in 1934, he taught in Singapore and China. In 1949, intending to settle in Brazil, he traveled by way of Canada and within a very short time opted to stay there. He was Principal violist with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra for some time and taught at the Montreal Conservatory and at other music schools as well. He also conducted the National Arts Centre Orchestra, among many other ensembles. Joachim, understandably, was not a prolific composer, but he managed to write more than thirty works of some variety. His specialty was electronic and twelve-tone music. I have never heard any of it nor do I intend to - I dislike that sort of noise. Joachim died on July 30, 2010, at age 99.