Ayla Erduran

Ayla Erduran is a Turkish violinist and teacher born (in Istanbul) on September 22, 1934.  She is one of Turkey’s best known concert violinists.  She is also one of the very few pupils of Zino Francescatti.  Erduran is still active as a recitalist.  Although her career began with a recital at age ten, she was never known as a child prodigy.  That first recital included Mozart’s fourth concerto and Beethoven’s Spring Sonata.  She began violin lessons at age 4 - her first teacher was her mother (who was a violinist though not a very good one.)  Erduran’s early years were difficult because her mother was not unlike Guila Bustabo’s mother, which is to say, she was domineering and very pushy.  (Guila Bustabo’s mother was known to beat her on occasion.  Bustabo’s fellow pupils many times saw her with bruises on her little head and arms.)  After a short while, Erduran began lessons with Karl Berger in Istanbul.  Berger was known as the best violin teacher in Turkey at the time and Erduran studied with him for five years.  From age 10 to age 15 or 16, Erduran studied in Paris with Rene Benedetti, also a very well-known French violin teacher of that day.  (Several biographical summaries say Erduran studied at the Paris Conservatory but I was not able to confirm that.  Perhaps it’s true.)  In 1951, she traveled to the U.S. where she studied for four years with Ivan Galamian and Zino Francescatti, presumably in New York and not at the same time.  Many concert violinists concertize while studying but I do not know if Erduran did that.  She left the U.S. in 1955 – she was either 21 or 22 years old.  Before leaving, she made her American debut in New York but I do not know with which orchestra she played or when or what she played – all I know is that Thomas Scherman conducted the program.  Her European debut took place in Warsaw, Poland, where she played the Glazunov concerto with the Warsaw Philharmonic.  In 1957 she went to Moscow to study with David Oistrakh.  She stayed until sometime in 1958.  She was 24 or 25 years old.  In 1957, she was awarded fifth place in the Wieniawski violin competition – there were more than 120 competitors that year.  The next 40 years she spent concertizing around the world playing with many famous conductors and orchestras in prestigious concert halls.  Erduran premiered the Elgar concerto in Turkey.  Between 1973 and 1990 she taught at the Lausanne Conservatory in Switzerland.  She returned to Istanbul in 1990 – she was 56 years old.  Erduran has been recognized for her artistic achievements by several countries, including Turkey, the Netherlands, England, Poland, and Belgium.  Among the violins she has played are a Guarnerius from 1720 (not a Del Gesu) and the famous Roederer Stradivarius from 1710, now played (though not owned) by French violinist David Grimal.  Two biographies have been written about Erduran – they are probably still in print.  Here is a YouTube audio file where Erduran plays a popular Kreisler piece. 

Tedi Papavrami

Tedi Papavrami is an Albanian violinist, teacher, and actor born (in Tirana, Albania) on May 13, 1971.  Although it can most assuredly be said that he possesses a quite fantastic technique and formidable artistic insight (second to none, in my opinion), he is much better known in Europe than in the U.S. and therefore has a lower global profile than he might otherwise.  Besides being a musician and actor, he is also a writer.  In addition, he has transcribed various works written for other instruments for his use as violin pieces.  Among them are several Scarlatti piano sonatas.  Nowadays, that activity is rare among violinists, though it was commonplace in the old days – say, prior to 1945.  Papavrami first studied with his father – Robert Papavrami, a violinist and violin teacher – from age 5.  At age 7, he enrolled at the Jordan Misja School of Art in Tirana.  He made his orchestral debut at age 8, playing Sarasate’s Gypsy Airs (Zigeunerweisen.)  At age 11, he played Paganini’s first concerto with the same orchestra – the Tirana Philharmonic.  Soon thereafter, he was offered a scholarship by the French government to study at the Paris Conservatory.  He was 12 years old.  His teacher there – among others - was Pierre Amoyal.  Papavrami graduated from the Paris Conservatory at age 15.  He studied further with Zino Francescatti and Viktoria Mullova.  According to one source, he also received a degree – I don’t know in what field of study – from the Lausanne Conservatory in 1987.  By 1986, he had already established his base, so to speak, in Paris, France.  Here is a YouTube video of his performance of Paganini’s second concerto.  I’ve already heard nearly all of the recordings of this concerto that are out there and this one is the best among them.  Papavrami has concertized around the world since completing his formal music studies but spends scant time in the U.S.  He is also one of a handful of violinists who have played recitals composed entirely of the 24 Paganini Caprices.  In 2003, he was engaged to play a principal role in the French film, Dangerous Liaisons, with Catherine Deneuve and the notorious Natasha Kinski.  In 2008, he was appointed violin professor at the Geneva Conservatory in Switzerland and has been living in Geneva ever since.  In 2002, Papavrami was named official French translator by the publisher of the works of his countryman, Ismail Kadare.  His recordings on the Naxos and Aeon labels have been praised by every music critic.  His first major recording (for Naxos) was released in 1997.  It features both Prokofiev concertos.  Papavrami’s transcriptions - for solo violin - of the Domenico Scarlatti Sonatas have been published but I know not by whom.  Papavrami is also the violinist of the Schumann Piano Quartet - with violist Christoph Schiller, pianist Christian Favre, and cellist Francois Guye.  Their magnificent recording of the piano quartets of Ernest Chausson and Gabriel Faure can easily be found on the internet.  Papavrami's violin is one constructed especially for him by French violin maker (luthier) Christian Bayon.  

Gerard Poulet

Gerard Poulet is a French violinist and teacher born (in Bayonne) on August 12, 1938.  His father (Gaston Poulet), with whom he began his violin studies, was also a violinist.  His career has been mainly spent in Europe though he has performed in almost every continent.  He entered the Paris Conservatory at age 11 and graduated at age 12.  His main teacher there was Andre Asselin.  As did Bronislaw Huberman before him, he had many teachers: Zino Francescatti, Nathan Milstein, Yehudi Menuhin, and Henryk Szeryng were among them.  Poulet made his debut at age 12 playing the Mendelssohn concerto.  He recorded the third concerto of Mozart at age 14 with his father on the podium.  At age 18, he won the Paganini Competition in Genoa, Italy.  As do all winners of that competition, he got to play Paganini’s violin, the famous Cannone.  He later dedicated a good deal of time to teaching at the National Conservatory in Paris.  In 2007, he began teaching at the University of Arts in Tokyo.  He might not be there any longer since I could not locate his name on any faculty roster.  Poulet played the 1720 Henri Marteau Guarnerius from 1975 until about 1988 and that violin is supposedly now owned by Maxim Vengerov, though I could not find a single public source to confirm that.  His most famous pupils are most probably Renaud Capucon and Vineta Sareika.  

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.  

Ivan Galamian

Ivan Galamian (Ivan Alexander Galamian) was an Armenian violinist and teacher (some sources say Persian because he was born in Iran) born on January 23, 1903 - some sources say February 25 and others say February 5 - (Heifetz was 2 years old.)  He is remembered as one of the best violin teachers of the 20th Century – an institution at the Juilliard School (New York.)  As a young man, Galamian studied at the School of the Philharmonic Society with Konstantin Mostras, in Moscow, where he resided with his family from infancy.  It is said he also studied with Julius Conus.  Conus taught in Moscow until 1919, so that is entirely possible. Galamian graduated from the school in 1919, at age 16, and began playing in the opera orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre.  In 1922, he moved to France where he studied further with Lucien Capet in Paris (1922-1923.)  He made his Paris debut on May 5, 1924 although he played another recital there on December 24, 1926 which is also called his debut recital.  It has been widely reported that he suffered from an incapacitating but undefined nervous condition (possibly stage fright) and soon gave up his dream of a concertizing career – unlike Ruggiero Ricci who never experienced nervousness when playing.  From 1925 until 1929 he taught at the Russian Conservatory in Paris while still performing occasionally.  Even at this early stage of his teaching career, he produced a special student in the person of Vida Reynolds, the first woman to play with the first violins of the Philadelphia Orchestra.  Galamian came to the U.S. in 1937, where he remained for the rest of his life.  While setting up a private studio in New York City he also taught at the Henry Street Settlement House there.  He was hired by Efrem Zimbalist – via a recommendation by Zino Francescatti - to teach at the Curtis Institute (1944) and then was also offered a similar post at Juilliard (1946 – some sources say 1948.)  In 1944 he founded the Meadowmount Music School (Westport, New York) which operated during summer months – a sort of intense music camp which became very successful.  Galamian had hundreds of students and therefore used more than half a dozen teaching assistants – Dorothy DeLay and Robert Lipsett among them.  (In 1970, he and Dorothy DeLay acrimoniously parted ways because of a difference of opinion regarding teaching approaches and he refused to speak to her for the remainder of his life.  He also tried to get her fired from Juilliard – unsuccessfully.)  It has been said that due to his authoritarian methods all his pupils sound the same – unlike Leopold Auer’s.  In 1962, Galamian published two books on violin technique which are still in print.  He also edited many standard works for violin.  As far as I know, he never recorded anything commercially.  Among Galamian’s famous pupils are Michael Rabin, Pinchas Zukerman, Eugene Fodor, Tigran Vardanyan, Hyman Bress, Simon Standage, Stuart Canin, Linda Rose, and Ani Kavafian.  Galamian taught until the day he died, April 14, 1981, at age 78.

Zino Francescatti

Zino Francescatti (René-Charles Francescatti) was a French violinist born on August 9, 1902 (Heifetz was born in 1901.) Both of his parents were violinists - his father had even been a pupil of Camillo Sivori, a pupil of Nicolo Paganini. Francescatti began to study violin at age 3 and made his public debut with Beethoven’s violin concerto at age 10. As far as I know, his father was his only teacher (such was the case with Alexander Markov and Daniel Barenboim as well.) Prior to 1927, Francescatti briefly undertook a career in Law but gave that up when his father died, leaving the family in a precarious financial situation. Before transitioning into a successful solo career, he taught at the National School of Music in Paris (where other teachers included Alfred Cortot, Pablo Casals, Paul Dukas, Arthur Honneger, and Nadia Boulanger.) He also played in the Concerts Poulets Orchestra as assistant concertmaster. He did not make his first world tour until 1931. His U.S. debut took place in New York in 1939. On that occasion, he played Paganini’s first concerto, for which he later became well-regarded. From then on (except for the War years), he concertized and recorded until his retirement in 1976. He was also known as a great humanitarian. His sound was not thin and focused but rather ample and broad and warm (especially well-suited for the Romantic repertoire) and his technique was magnificent. All of his recordings – among which are all the Beethoven Sonatas - are highly regarded. Several videos of Francescatti at work are posted on YouTube. One of the violins he owned was the Hart Stradivarius of 1727, now owned by Salvatore Accardo. Francescatti died on September 17, 1991, at age 89. His most famous pupils are probably Gerard Poulet and Tedi Papavrami.