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.”  

Midori

Midori (Midori Goto) is a Japanese (some would say American) violinist, teacher, and writer, born on October 25, 1971 (Perlman was 25 years old.) She began violin lessons with her mother at age three. Her first public performance took place at age seven. After she and her mother came to the U.S. (1982), she began studying at Juilliard with Dorothy Delay. Her New York debut took place with the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta that same year. She has been concertizing ever since. YouTube features a popular home video of her performance at Tanglewood (1986) when her E string broke twice while she played. In 2000, she graduated from New York University, having earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and again in 2005 a Master’s Degree in the same field from the same school. Nowadays, Midori spends a lot of time teaching - she has founded several educational programs for children. She has also taught at USC (Los Angeles - Heifetz used to teach there) and the Manhattan School of Music, among other schools, and is the recipient of several prestigious awards. However, her discography is not extensive and she has yet to record (or release) the Beethoven and the Brahms concertos, two war horses of the violin repertory. She wrote a memoir (Simply Midori) which was published in 2004. She has played (and perhaps still plays) the famous 1734 Huberman Guarnerius. A wonderful CD  and DVD of her Carnegie Hall recital (1990) are still available. Here is a sample from the DVD posted on YouTube. 

William Primrose

William Primrose was a truly outstanding Scottish viola player of the Twentieth Century. He was born on August 23, 1904 (Heifetz was 3 years old.) His first violin lessons were with his father, John Primrose, a violinist in the Scottish Orchestra. After graduating from the Guildhall School of Music in 1924, he played violin wherever he could. Two years later, he began lessons with (the 68-year-old) Eugene Ysaye, who, it is said, encouraged him to give up the violin in favor of the viola. Nobody knows why and I haven't done enough research to find out. Anyway, "what's done cannot be undone." From 1930 until 1935, he played viola in the London String Quartet. In 1937, he joined the NBC Symphony Orchestra as assistant principal violist but left after he heard that Toscanini would be quitting the conductor's post in 1941. He was there for four years. Eventually, his solo career really took off. He was the first violist to record Harold In Italy, Berlioz's famous viola concerto (or tone poem or fantasy or whatever it is). That was in 1946. This is the same piece Paganini refused to play because it was not dazzling enough, though that is just a rumor. Who really knows? Primrose also premiered Bartok's Viola Concerto (1949). He was so technically brilliant that he could play Paganini's violin caprices on the viola - no small accomplishment. Nevertheless, Emanuel Vardi was the first to record the Caprices on the viola. Primrose played an Amati viola (which is really a reconstructed viola – originally much larger) now owned by the former principal violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Roberto Diaz. Later in his life, Primrose was a distinguished teacher at Indiana, USC, Juilliard, and other schools and wrote several method books. There are several videos of his playing on YouTube. As far as I know, Primrose is the only violist in history to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He died on May 1, 1982, at age 77.