Robert Lipsett

Robert Lipsett (Robert Crawford Lipsett Jr.) is an American violinist and teacher born (in Louisville, Kentucky) on October 23, 1947.  He is best known for holding the violin chair at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, a position named after Jascha Heifetz.  He literally teaches in Heifetz’ old music studio, which was disassembled at Heifetz' home in Beverly Hills and reassembled on the Colburn School’s campus.  The studio includes almost all of Heifetz’ furnishings and décor as well.  He has been on the faculty for more than 25 years.  Lipsett gives master classes all over the world and also teaches at the Aspen School of Music.  He began his violin studies as a child, at age 7, in Dallas, Texas with Zelman Brounoff (concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony) and Ruth Lasley.  After his family moved to Saint Louis (Missouri), he continued his music studies with Melvin Ritter (concertmaster of the St Louis Symphony and former student of William Kroll.)  Eventually, he graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music and, after graduation, also studied with Ivan Galamian at Juilliard (New York) and Endre Granat, presumably in Los Angeles.  In 1986, he began teaching at USC (University of Southern California.)  Lipsett has also worked as a session (studio) violinist in Los Angeles, recording for movies, television, and CDs.  He has received several awards for his distinguished career as a teacher.  Among his many pupils are Robert Chen, Tamaki Kawakubo, Kathryn Eberle, Leila Josefowicz, Jennifer Frautschi, and Lindsay Deutsch.  From the photo you can see Lipsett plays a fine violin but I don’t know what it is.  About achieving a top concert career, Lipsett has said the following: “One eventually has to face a sort of reality.  Being a top concert violinist is like running for President.  There’s just not much room up there at all.”  

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.