Tadeusz Wronski
Tadeusz Wronski was born on April 1, 1915, in Warsaw, Poland. He started to play the violin at the age of seven. In 1930 he began to study with Prof. Józef Jarzębski. In 1939 he graduated with distinction from the Warsaw Conservatorium of Music, but the war did not allow him to concentrate on his promising career. After the war he went to Sopot, at the Baltic coast, to restart his professional life. He was a co-founder, and then the first concertmaster of the Baltic Philharmonic. While in Sopot, he also began to teach the violin. In 1947 he received a scholarship to study in Belgium, at the Royal Conservatorium in Brussels, in the class of Prof. Andre Gertler. He graduated in 1949 with a diploma and a distinction Premiere Prix. The same year he became an assistant professor at the Warsaw Conservatorium of Music and started to develop his artistic career.
Wronski played many concerts and recitals in Europe and Asia, performing as a soloist with the Polish and foreign orchestras, under such maestros as: St. Wisłocki, J. Krenz, B. Wodiczko, W.Rowicki, P. Klecky, V. Smetacek, D. Georgescu, etc., as well as in a duo with the famous pianist, Władyslaw Szpilman, then in a string quartet, and, finally in the Warsaw Quintet. Vividly interested in the Polish music environment he co-founded the Association of the Polish Musicians, and the Association of the Polish Violin Makers.
In 1965 Wronski went to the USA, to teach at the reknowned American music academy, the Indiana University School of Music, in Bloomington, Indiana. From then, until 1986, he divided his time between Warsaw and Bloomington. In 1973 – 1975 he was the Rector of the Fryderyk Chopin University (then- Academy) of Music in Warsaw. In over 40 years of his didactic work he taught violin to about 400 students. Many of those who studied with him made important artistic and pedagogical careers. Wronski worked on several professional and administrative boards, such as the Central Committee of Qualification, the Polish Council of Culture and the Council for University Education at the Ministry of Culture and Arts. For his artistic achievements Wronski received a number of Polish state distinctions, as well as a medal from the Shah of Iran (1967).
Tadeusz Wroński made a number of radio, tv and disc recordings in Poland and abroad. He took part in various radio and tv programs, including a 1989 series of twelve episodes, realized by the Polish Radio “Professors and their students, Wroński’s Dynasty”, and a three episode radio mini-series, "Conversations with a Maestro”.
Tadeusz Wroński gave master courses and was a jury member of a number of violin and violin-making competitions. He co-organized the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition in Poznan, Poland. In 1990 he organized his own contest, the Tadeusz Wroński Competition for solo violin. The event attracted nearly 30 young violinists from all over Poland and marked a new chapter in Wroński’s professional life, as the success of that first competition brought about two more national contests – in 1992 and 1995, and then in 1997 the competition became an international event. Today the International Tadeusz Wroński Solo Violin Competition remain the only such contest in the world.
Yet another area of Wroński’s activity was editorial work. He made many editions of violin music, and wrote books on teaching music. Tadeusz Wroński also initiated and organized a number of courses and summer workshops for musicians. His last creation was an annual summer course for string instruments teachers and their students in Zagan, Poland, with the idea to work together on solving problems in teaching.
Wronski took great interest in the phenomenon of talent. During his term as Rector of the F. Chopin University of Music (UMFC) he opened a Music Pedagogy Institute at that school. He took part in the Institute’s work as the chairman of its scientific council. He lectured on psychology and musical talent at the Institute and at the Academy of Special Education, and attended a number of symposiums and international conferences on talent in music, in art in general, as well as in the areas not related to art. In 1993, the UMFC in Warsaw (his alma mater) honored him with an honorary doctorate title for his entire work. He also received the honorary membership of The Association of Japanese String Teachers.
Tadeusz Wroński was well known also to violin makers. He took interest in string instrument construction and maintained active contacts with many makers in Poland and abroad. Recognized as an expert, he frequently advised young professionals, both those who make string instruments, and those who play them.
Music and teaching were not the only fields of his interest; the list includes philosophy, astrology, tarot, chess. He authored a large number of chess compositions, specializing in fairy chess, and double move chess. He won several prizes in international chess composition competitions. He wrote poems, books and essays on subjects that fascinated him.
Until the end of his life Tadeusz Wroński remained active: he worked on music editions and took interest in music events in Poland. He did not live to see his last book in print. "Artysta w Krainie Myśli" (An Artist in the Land of Thought) – a reflection of his broad interests in many areas-appeared a few weeks after his death. Tadeusz Wroński passed away on 15 January 2000, at the age of 85. (Biography taken from the Tadeusz Wronski Violin Foundation-- https://fundacjaskrzypce.pl/en/tadeusz-wronski/ )
James Buswell
Violinist, conductor, recording artist, and educator, James Buswell always chose to cultivate the art of music while playing many roles. As a violin virtuoso, he first burst on to the New York music scene as the youngest ever soloist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of seven. His mature solo career commenced in 1963 and included performances of more than one hundred violin concerti on five continents with major orchestras.
The art of expressive recital playing was central to Buswell’s solo career as he was passionate about communicating in one performance the diverse languages of four centuries of violin music. His love for ensemble playing led to a dynamic career of performing both violin and viola in chamber music repertoire. He played in the gala opening week of concerts at Alice Tully Hall in New York's Lincoln Center. Later, he became a regular artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for more than a decade. As a conductor, Buswell was blessed to have collaborated as a violin soloist with many of the greatest conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, George Szell, William Steinberg,
Seiji Ozawa, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Andre Previn, Pierre Boulez, and Michael Tilson Thomas. Though the influences of these luminaries were palpable in his music, Buswell nevertheless crafted a unique leadership role whenever he was on stage. It was not unusual to see him lead a conductor-less orchestra from the soloist or the concertmaster position and exchange the violin for a baton to conduct a full-scale symphonic or operatic work at the same event. The seamless transition from instrument to baton was often a marvel to the audience.
A Grammy nominated artist, James Buswell made his debut recording with the London Symphony Orchestra playing the Vaughan-Williams Concerto. His CD of the Barber Violin Concerto with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra was nominated for a Grammy in 2002. Since 2015, Buswell released 3 CDs on Naxos: two discs of 20th century concerti by Turkish composer Ulvi Cemal Erkin and American composer Walter Saul, and a chamber music disc, where he performed as a guest violist on Carpe Diem String Quartet’s recording of Taneyev’s Viola Quintet. Other solo and chamber music recordings that have won critical acclaim include the Six Solo Sonatas and Partitas of J.S. Bach on Centaur Records, Bach’s Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord on Vanguard Records, and Walter Piston’s Violin Concerti and Chamber Music on Naxos.
In celebration of the 300th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach’s birth, James Buswell was invited to perform and serve as the principal tour guide and narrator in a film portraying Bach's life and culture. "The Stations of Bach" which was premiered at a special event in Washington D.C. paying tribute to the re-unification of Germany, and then broadcast extensively over PBS.
As a young performer, Buswell was asked to add teaching duties to his already full schedule. His primary teachers were Mary Canberg, Paul Stassevich, and Ivan Galamian, from whom he gained insights to the legendary disciplines of the Russian School and the modern techniques of the Franco-Belgian tradition. Always pursuing the best practice in violin pedagogy, Buswell honed his educational skills at the University of Arizona, and later at Indiana University. While in Bloomington, he founded the Chamber Orchestra of the School of Music, and conducted a great variety of repertoire including ballet and opera. In 1987, he accepted a post at the New England Conservatory of Music where he taught for more than a quarter of a century. As of 2018 until his death on September 28, 2021, both Mr. Buswell and his wife, cellist Carol Ou, served on the faculty of the Steinhardt School at New York University.
The distinctive priorities of his pedagogy made him very much in demand as a clinician and master class presenter. Toward that end, he was also in the process of compiling a large library of editions, which included only a portion of the huge repertoire that he was fortunate enough to perform numerous times. He also continued to serve on countless juries of international string competitions until his death.
The alumni of the Buswell studio are remarkable for their diversity. Several have become distinguished in the performance of contemporary music, whereas others have made a career in Baroque performance and country fiddling. Many populate the finest orchestras of the world, some as instrumentalists and others as conductors. Buswell regularly visited the studios of his alumni, where he was privileged to be able to guide the grandchildren of his pedagogy.
Boston was the home for James Buswell through more than half of his life, ever since he became enchanted with its intellectual environment as a freshman at Harvard. He lived there with his wife and children, Anna and William until his passing. (Biography taken from Virtuosity Online-- https://www.virtuosity.online/buswell )
Peter Marsh
A violinist and violist, Peter Marsh retired as director of string chamber music at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California. For 23 years (1957-81), he played first violin for the Lenox Quartet, “one of the finest quartets this country has yet produced” (New York Times). In 2006 he toured Korea, Alaska (the Fairbanks Festival of the Arts), Brazil (XI International Cello Encounter) and France (Franco Américaine Rencontre de Musique de la Chambre, at the Château de la Bretesche in Missillac).
After his time with the Lenox Quartet, Marsh was the first violinist for the Philadelphia, Berkshire, Sequoia, Southwest and Pacific String Quartets. Marsh also had been a member of the Picasso Trio (on both violin and viola), the Palo Verde, Amici, and Rio Trios. As concertmaster, Marsh played for the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Colorado Festival Orchestra, and the California Chamber Symphony. His chamber music collaborations included artists such as Leon Fleisher, Menahem Pressler, Stanley Drucker, John Wummur and Eudice Shapiro.
As a student, Marsh studied with Hans Letz (who taught at Juilliard and had been a student of Joseph Joachim). Further studies took him to the American Conservatory where he studied with Scott Willits, who studied for seven years with esteemed violinist and pedagogue Otakar Sevcik and was his “American Representative.” Marsh’s third teacher was Emanuel Zetlin at the University of Washington. Zetlin had studied with Leopold Auer and was the assistant to Carl Flesch at the opening of the Curtis Institute.
Marsh presented masterclasses and concerts in Chino, Taiwan, Korea, Alaska and Brazil. Marsh also was the director of a festival (Franco-Americaine Rencontre de Musique de Chambre) for 16 years in France. Each year he took an outstanding USC student chamber group to play with him and with French musicians.
Marsh served on the faculties of Indiana University (Bloomington), Grinnell College, SUNY Binghamton, CSU Fullerton, California Institute of the Arts, San Francisco Conservatory, Ithaca College and Western Washington University. As a performer and teacher, Marsh attended the Aspen, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Spoleto, Fairbanks and other festivals. Additionally, Marsh conducted the Western Washington University Symphony, served on the music panels of NYSCA and the National Endowment for the Arts, and was a founder of Chamber Music America. As editor of “The Violin Forum” in American String Teacher magazine, he contributed articles on violin technique. Peter Marsh provided the masterclasses for the Chamber Music Institute of Southern California from 2013-2017. He died in April 2021.
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Stanley Ritchie
Stanley Ritchie is a Distinguished Professor of Music (Violin, Historical Performance), Professor Emeritus, at Jacobs School of Music.
A pioneer in the early music field in America, he was born and educated in Australia, graduating from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 1956. He left Australia in 1958 to pursue his studies in Paris with Jean Fournier, continuing in 1959 in the United States, where he studied with Joseph Fuchs, Oscar Shumsky, and Samuel Kissel.
In 1963, Ritchie was appointed concertmaster of the New York City Opera and served as associate concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera from 1965 to 1970. From 1970 to 1973, he performed as a member of the New York Chamber Soloists and served as assistant concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony from 1973 until 1975, when he joined the Philadelphia String Quartet—in residence at the University of Washington in Seattle—as first violinist.
His interest in baroque and classical violin dates from 1970, when he embarked on a collaboration with harpsichordist Albert Fuller, which led to the founding, in 1973, of the Aston Magna summer workshop and festival. In 1974, Ritchie joined harpsichordist Elisabeth Wright in forming Duo Geminiani. The duo’s 1983 recording of the Bach Sonatas for Violin and Obbligato Harpsichord earned immediate critical acclaim.
He has performed with many prominent musicians in the early music field, including Hogwood, Gardiner, Bruegghen, Norrington, Bilson, and Bylsma, and was a member of the Mozartean Players for 20 years, with fortepianist Steven Lubin and cellist Myron Lutzke. Ritchie has appeared as soloist or conductor with a number of major early music orchestras, among them the Academy of Ancient Music, Tafelmusik, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra.
Recognized as a leading exponent of baroque and classical violin playing, Ritchie performs, teaches, and lectures worldwide, most recently in Australia, Germany, Italy, Colombia, China, and Greece. He has served on the jury at the Leipzig International Bach Competition and is a frequent guest at Kloster Michaelstein, in Blankenburg, Germany, where he gives master classes in baroque and classical technique and interpretation. He has been a faculty member of the Accademia di Musica Antica in Bruneck (Südtirol) since 2000 and served for 10 years as artistic director of the Bloomington Early Music Festival. His ex-students are prominent members of the early music profession, some of them also occupying important teaching positions in the United States.
In June 2009, he received Early Music America’s highest honor, the Howard Mayer Brown Award for Lifetime Achievement in Early Music. In April 2016, he was promoted by the Indiana University Board of Trustees to the rank of distinguished professor.
Ritchie’s recordings include Vivaldi’s Op.11 Violin Concertos with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music (Oiseau Lyre); the Mozart piano quartets and the complete piano trios of Mozart and Schubert as a member of the Mozartean Players, and a CD of seventeenth-century music for three violins and continuo, Three Parts upon a Ground, with John Holloway, Andrew Manze, Nigel North, and John Toll, all for Harmonia Mundi USA. His recordings also include selected Concerti and Serenate of Francesco Antonio Bonporti, with Bloomington Baroque (Dorian Discovery) and two CDs of chamber music of Anton Wranitzky with Ensemble Cordia (Brilliant). His recording of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (Musica Omnia mo0503), released in January 2014, has received high critical praise.
Ritchie’s book Before the Chinrest—a Violinist’s Guide to the Mysteries of Pre-Chinrest Technique and Style, published by Indiana University Press, was released in June 2012. His second book, The Accompaniment in “Unaccompanied” Bach—Interpreting the Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, also on IU Press, was published in 2016. (Biography taken from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music website- https://music.indiana.edu/faculty/emeritus/ritchie-stanley.html )
Rostislav Dubinsky
Rostislav Dubinsky, born in Ukraine in 1923, was a violinist best known as the founding first violinist of the Borodin Quartet and the violinist of the Borodin Trio. Dubinsky began playing his violin with instruction from his father until his family moved to Moscow where he was enrolled at the Central Music School in 1933. After graduating from Central Music School where he studied with Abram Yampolsky, he began studying at the Moscow Conservatory. This is where he was first introduced to chamber music and quartet playing.
In 1945, Dubinsky founded the Moscow Philharmonic Quartet with fellow Conservatory students, Vladimir Rabei (second violin), Rudolf Barshai (viola), and Valentin Berlinsky (cello). From 1954, this quartet was known as the Borodin Quartet. By the time Dubinsky left the Borodin Quartet in 1976, the ensemble had performed around 3,000 concerts worldwide. The Borodin Quartet played the standard quartet repertoire, but is known to be closely related to Dmitri Shostakovich whose works were introduced by the Quartet to the West. In addition to Shostakovich, the Borodin Quartet performed premiere performances of works by Alfred Schnittke, Boris Tchaikovsky, Lev Knipper, and Moisei Weinberg.
After teaching at the conservatories of The Hague and Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Dubinsky and his wife, Luba Edlina, joined the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music in 1981 with Edlina as Professor of Piano and Dubinsky as Professor of Chamber Music. The chamber music program flourished with Dubinsky at the helm. He coached most of the student chamber ensembles, organized the MAC Chamber Music Festival occurring at the end of each semester, and was a regular faculty member at the annual IU Summer String Academy. Dubinsky developed young chamber musicians who later became prominent, and left lasting impressions for music students during his time at the Jacobs School. He expressed of music, "Music never comes by itself. It has to be invited by painstaking daily work. Then, maybe, one day it will favor you."
The Rostislav Dubinsky Music Scholarship was established by his wife, Luba Edlina-Dubinsky, in honor of his memory. This scholarship is awarded to outstanding undergraduate and graduate students who specialize in either chamber music or small ensembles. (Biography taken from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music website-- https://music.indiana.edu/giving/scholarships/scholarships-dubinsky.html)
Dr. Joseph Rezits
In a profession filled with egotism, Joseph Rezits seemed devoid of ego. To him, it was only about the music and the students at Indiana University. Because he did not carry himself with an air of self importance, those who never knew him directly probably would never have sensed that he provided a
more lasting legacy to the music profession than many of those who spent their lives touring the globe as performers.
It should never be forgotten that Joseph Rezits was an outstanding pianist at the Curtis Institute and whose performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy was highly praised: “an instinctive artist….Few of today’s crop of young pianists have the grace and natural poetic quality Mr.
Rezits displayed.”
His piano and chamber music teachers, as well as his classmates, read as a “Who’s Who” of musicians in his era. However, his primary mentor was the legendary and tyrannical Isabelle Vengerova, whom he would 50 years later immortalize for posterity in his masterful, engaging 200 -page book, “Beloved Tyranna: The Legend and Legacy of Isabelle Vengerova."
This was only one of his six books, which include the 993 page “The Pianists Resource Guide.” He also authored numerous insightful articles. Dr. Rezits never ceased performing, and he evolved into primarily being a duo and chamber pianist. Even in his last years when in his 90s, he continued to perform in this capacity, while also continuing to explore lesser known solo literature. There are many who can perform successfully but who are not especially articulate as writers and speakers. In this latter capacity Joseph Rezits appeared in nearly all of the states of the United States and on five continents.
(The above essay [http://www.dersnah-fee.com/Essays%20and%20Educational%20Material/JosephRezits.pdf] comes from the website of the Dersnah-Fee School of Music http://www.dersnah-fee.com/index.html
Born in New York State, he received an artist’s diploma at the Curtis Institute of Music and went on to earn two music degrees at the University of Illinois. He later earned a doctor of musical arts degree at the University of Colorado. Joseph Rezits made his professional debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting, shortly after his graduation from The Curtis Institute of Music, where he had studied with Isabelle Vengerova. Dr. Rezits was assistant professor of music at the New Jersey State College , 1957-62; Professor of Music (piano), Indiana University, Bloomington, 1962-90, and Professor Emeritus of Music (piano), 1990-2019. He was an esteemed pianist, pedagogue, and chamber musician. As a pianist, Rezits traveled throughout the world, performing, lecturing, and teaching. He was internationally known as a performer, recording artist, lecturer, clinician and author. He after he retired in 1990 he continued to perform. He passed away November 15, 2019 at age 94.