I'm very sad to pass this info along. Professor Vosgerchian was a
wonderful person.
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 08:35:21 -0500
From: Mark DeVoto <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Luise Vosgerchian
Luise Vosgerchian, an incomparable musician, a fine pianist, and a
teacher with extraordinary powers of communication, and one of the
great people of this earth, died yesterday at the age of 77 of cancer
of the colon.
Luise will be remembered as one of Boston's most beloved pianists,
as soloist with orchestra, as chamber musician, as accompanist, as
inspiring teacher to hundreds, during many years when she taught at
the Longy School of Music, at Brandeis University, and at Harvard,
first as Preceptor in Piano, later as Walter Piston's successor in
the Walter W. Naumburg professorship. She taught the first-year
harmony class to an entire generation of music majors, and her classes
in analysis, score-reading, keyboard harmony, and dechiffrage have
been a lasting inspiration for forty years and more.
I was fortunate to study in Luise's special piano class for one
memorable semester. What I learned in that class has permanently
informed my teaching style and technique in 36 years of college-level
harmony teaching.
I don't know exactly what year she won the Leventritt Award; I think
it was 1953, and I think she was the first woman ever to achieve it.
Luise was also for many years a member of the Executive Committee of
the Trustees of the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund, Inc., serving to
carry out the testamentary wishes of her teacher, Nadia Boulanger,
to assist the early careers of young composers and performers of
promise.
She was a wonderful musician and friend.
Mark DeVoto
(former President, the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund, Inc.)
Mark DeVoto / Music Department, Tufts University / 20 Professors Row /
Medford, Massachusetts 02155 / [log in to unmask]
http://www.tufts.edu/~mdevoto
Mimi
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