By Carol Merrill-Mirsky Piatigorsky spent the first eighteen years of his life in Ukraine, where he was born, and Russia, where he studied at the Moscow Conservatory. An itinerant cellist from the age of eight, self-supporting from the age of twelve, he joined the orchestra at the Bolshoi Theater as principal cellist before his fifteenth…Continue Reading From The Piatigorsky Archives – Part 3: Piatigorsky In Russia
Year: 2016
Cello Stories, part IV – Paulo Ribeiro
By Jonathan Shifflett Speaking with our festival attendees reminds us of the passion that people all over the world feel for the cello and the lengths they will go to support that passion. In this fourth installment of Cello Stories, we talk with an attendee who recently returned to playing the cello after giving…Continue Reading Cello Stories, part IV – Paulo Ribeiro
Cello Stories, part III – Robert Francis and Rainer Crosett
By Jonathan Shifflett Students and teachers can have a mutually beneficial influence. When Rainer Crosett, a Master of Music candidate at USC Thornton School of Music, took on beginning cellist Robert Francis, a retired aerospace engineer, they not only bonded over a shared love of the instrument, they overcame new musical challenges. In this third installment…Continue Reading Cello Stories, part III – Robert Francis and Rainer Crosett
FROM THE PIATIGORSKY ARCHIVES – Part 2: A TREASURE!
By Carol Merrill-Mirsky Here is a passage from Piatigorsky’s autobiography, “Cellist,” published in 1965: When I entered the stage for rehearsal in Frankfurt-am-Main [in 1926] and saw Richard Strauss, it was a shock. He was the last person I expected to be the conductor. I thought that it was a mistake and that I was…Continue Reading FROM THE PIATIGORSKY ARCHIVES – Part 2: A TREASURE!
Cello Stories, Part II: Christopher Hutton
By Jonathan Shifflett As part of our Cello Stories series, we took a minute to ask Christopher Hutton, Associate Professor of Violoncello at Furman University, about his background as a cellist and what events at the upcoming Piatigorsky Festival he finds most enticing. Hutton studied at Boston University with Leslie Parnas, and earned Master of…Continue Reading Cello Stories, Part II: Christopher Hutton
From The Piatigorsky Archives – Part 1
By Carol Merrill-Mirsky When Jacqueline Piatigorsky died at the age of 100, much of Gregor Piatigorsky’s personal archive was donated to the Colburn School in downtown Los Angeles. Over a hundred boxes of correspondence, orchestral scores, original manuscripts, concert programs, clippings, recordings, films, books and ephemera needed to be sorted, inventoried and properly stored. As…Continue Reading From The Piatigorsky Archives – Part 1
Cello Stories, Part 1: Karen Steinbach
This year’s Festival plays host to a wide range of professional cellists and composers. For this series, Cello Stories, we turned our attention to the Festival’s audience members. Karen Steinbach, teacher, nature lover and tennis buff, has had a long history with the cello from her upbringing in California to her life in Jerusalem. As…Continue Reading Cello Stories, Part 1: Karen Steinbach
When Lesser Met Benny
By Jonathan Shifflett Few people know that the Second World War turned Los Angeles into a hotbed of classical music. Musicians fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe arrived in Hollywood to fill spots in the prosperous film studio orchestras and caused a striking transformation. A city that was once a cultural desert was suddenly flooded with some of…Continue Reading When Lesser Met Benny