Efrem Kurtz

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Efrem Kurtz (Template:Langx; November 7, 1900Template:Spaced ndashJune 27, 1995)<ref name="Grove">Template:Cite Grove</ref> was a Russian conductor.

Life and career

Kurtz was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia.<ref name="Grove"/> He studied at the Saint Petersburg conservatory with Alexander Glazunov and Nikolai Tcherepnin, among others.<ref name="Grove"/> He then pursued graduate studies at Riga University and the Stern Conservatory in Berlin.<ref name="Grove"/> He later was a pupil of Arthur Nikisch in Leipzig.<ref name=IndependentObit>Template:Cite news</ref>

Kurtz made his conducting debut in Berlin in 1921 while a student at the Stern Conservatory when he substituted for an ill Nikisch to accompany the dancer Isadora Duncan on tour.<ref name="Grove"/> This led to a number of concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic.Template:Citation needed From 1924 to 1933 he conducted the Stuttgart Philharmonic, and in 1928, Kurtz was engaged by Anna Pavlova to accompany her dancing, which he did until her death in 1931.<ref name="Grove"/> From 1933 to 1941 he was conductor of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, touring with them extensively.<ref name="Grove"/> His work in Monte Carlo included conducting the premiere of Gaîté Parisienne.<ref name="Anderson">Anderson, Martin, "A Century in Music: Manuel Rosenthal in Conversation" (April 2000). Tempo (New Ser.) (212): pp. 31-37.</ref>

Kurtz later moved to the United States, and became a citizen of that country in 1944.<ref name="Grove"/> He was music director of the Kansas City Philharmonic from 1943 to 1948.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> He held the same post with the Houston Symphony from 1948 to 1954,<ref name="Grove"/> when his contract was not renewed.Template:Citation needed Kurtz also conducted a number of film scores, including Jacques Ibert's score for Orson Welles' Macbeth.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

From 1955 to 1957, Kurtz was music director of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic jointly with John Pritchard.<ref name="Grove"/> Thereafter he took a number of guest conducting posts, including engagements with orchestras in Leningrad and Moscow in the Soviet Union, where he returned for the first time in 1966.<ref name="Grove"/>

Kurtz was married three times.<ref name=IndependentObit/> He divorced his first wife, Katherine, to marry flutist Elaine Shaffer; Shaffer had been the first-chair flute of the Houston Symphony (under Kurtz) until she resigned in 1953 to pursue a successful solo career.<ref name="Roussel">Roussel, Hubert: The Houston Symphony Orchestra, 1913-1971: pp. 125-140. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974.</ref> The two remained married until her death, of lung cancer at the age of 47, in 1973.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> After her death, Kurtz married Mary Lynch, who survived him.<ref name="nyt">Template:Cite news</ref> He died in London, aged 94.<ref name="nyt"/>

Recordings

His recorded repertoire included works by among others Dmitri Shostakovich (early recordings, though not premieres, of several of the symphonies and the Age of Gold ballet suite), Ernest Bloch (one of whose last works, Two Last Poems (Maybe...) was dedicated to Elaine Shaffer), Heitor Villa-Lobos (his Uirapuru). Many of these recordings were made in the 1940s and 1950s with the Philharmonia in London. He recorded primarily for Columbia Records and EMI.