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In
Memory of Lory Wallfisch
A
concert in memoriam to the late Lory Wallfisch, Iva Dee Hiatt
Chair in music and professor emerita at Smith, will take
place on Saturday, May 5, at 8 p.m. in Sweeney Concert Hall,
Sage. The event will feature performances of works
by Bach, Beethoven, Enescu, Schumann, Perera and others.
Musicians and speakers will include Joan
Afferica, Judith Gordon, Ron Gorevic, Greg Hayes, Monica
Jakuc Leverett, Barry Keating, Nancy Morgan, James Nicolson,
Sergiu Schwarz, Hans-Martin Ulbrich, and Paul Wallfisch.
A reception will follow.
In 1964 Lory Wallfisch joined
the Smith community, where she often lectured on
composer George Enescu, with whom she was personally acquainted.
Wallfisch toured North America and Europe with the George
Enescu Chamber Players, and was one of the founding
members of the George Enescu Society of the United States.
When she was in her 90s Wallfisch released what became
a critically acclaimed CD, Lory Wallfisch
Remembers: A Festival of Romanian Music, and her translation
(Romanian to English) of the definitive book Masterworks
of George Enescu, by Pascal
Bentoiu, was published shortly before her death, by the University
of Illinois Press. Please join the Smith Community in celebrating
the life of this wonderfully talented woman.
Lory
Wallfisch was born in Ploiesti, Romania, in 1922 and received
her musical training at the Royal Conservatory of Music in
Bucharest, where she was a piano student of the renowned
Florica Muzicescu, (also the teacher of Dinu Lipatti and
Radu Lupu). In 1944 she married Ernst Wallfisch, and from
then on her career was linked to that of her husband and
artistic partner for the next 35 years. Yehudi Menuhin heard
them perform in Bucharest and helped them immigrate to the
United States. They became U.S. citizens in 1953. When Menuhin
received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1986, it was Lory who
wrote the tribute and presented him with the award.
As pianist
and harpsichordist of the internationally acclaimed Wallfisch
Duo, Lory Wallfisch performed throughout the United States,
Canada, Europe, North Africa, and Israel, occasionally performing
chamber music with other artists and also appearing as soloist,
including concerts with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, The
Camerata Lysy, (at the Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires), The Baltimore
Symphony, The Houston Symphony, and all the major orchestras
of Romania. She appeared on television in the U.S. and Europe,
including twice on the legendary "Les Grands
Enterpretes" series
in France, as well as countless sessions for most of the
European national radio networks and NPR in the U.S. Wallfisch
also participated in the music festivals of Edinburgh, York,
Venice, Besancon and numerous Menuhin Festivals in Gstaad,
Switzerland, and Casals Festivals in Prades, France.
Lory
joined the Smith faculty, together with her late husband,
in 1964. Her teaching activity included master classes in
Argentina, The Guild Hall in London, and residencies at the
Menuhin School in England and the Menuhin Academy in Switzerland.
Her lecture performances were often devoted to George Enescu,
whom she had the privilege of knowing personally. She presented
the oeuvre of the Romanian composer at many American colleges
and universities, including the Julliard School, The University
of Maryland; and around the world at various congresses of
the “European Piano Teacher’s Association,” The Sydney Conservatory
of Music, Australia; Fundacion San Telmo, Buenos Aires,
Argentina, and at the Sorbonne in Paris. She has served on
the jury of several international piano competitions and
beginning in 2002, her birth city of Ploesti declared a "Lory
Wallfisch Day" and initiated the “Lory Wallfisch International
Piano Competition.“
Lory Wallfisch was one of the
founding members and executive secretary of the George Enescu
Society of the United States, formed in observance of the
great master's centennial celebration in 1981. With the George
Enescu Chamber Players, she toured North America and Europe,
including performances at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall
and Wigmore Hall, London. In the 1990s, together with the
pianists Julian Musafia and Mihail Horia, she gave the first
performances since the composer's death of the then unpublished
Sinfonia Concertante for two pianos and string orchestra
by Dinu Lipatti, including appearances with the Rumanian
National Radio Orchestra, Bucharest, the Deutsches Kammerphilormanie
under the direction of Johannes Goritzki, and the New World
Symphony with Neal Stulberg.
Beginning in the 1950s, Lory
Wallfisch made recordings for the Odeon, Fonit, Vox-Turnabout,
Da Camera, Advance, Concert Hall Society and Musical Heritage
labels. In 2004, well into her ninth decade, The Beyer Music
Group released her critically acclaimed CD entitled Lory
Wallfisch Remembers: A Festival of Romanian Music, comprised
mostly of newly recorded, solo-piano works recorded on the
stage at Sage Hall.
Her translation (Romanian to
English) of the definitive book Masterworks
of George Enescue, by Pascal Bentoiu,
was published shortly before her death by the University
of Illinois Press. |
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