Daniel Heifetz

Daniel Alan Heifetz (born November 20, 1948) is an American concert violinist and the Founder and Artistic Director of the Heifetz International Music Institute. His career spans more than 40 years and has been focused on education and the art of communication through performance.

Early life

Daniel Heifetz was raised in Southern California, the son of Dr. Milton Heifetz and Betsy Heifetz (née Baron), and began violin studies at the age of six. At sixteen, Heifetz became a student of Efrem Zimbalist at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He was also coached by Jascha Brodsky and, upon Zimbalist's retirement, concluded his studies with Ivan Galamian. He made his New York orchestral debut at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center in a performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra. Heifetz was also mentored at the beginning of his career by both the Polish/Mexican violinist Henryk Szeryng, who introduced him to the Russian violinist David Oistrakh. It was Oistrakh who introduced him to the impresario Sol Hurok who took Heifetz under management.[1][2][3]

His younger brother is Ronald A. Heifetz, the Senior Lecturer in Public Leadership, co-founder of the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and co-founder of Cambridge Leadership Associates.

Career

Mr. Heifetz was a prizewinner in both the Merriweather-Post Competition in Washington, D.C. and The International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.[4] After the latter competition, Heifetz donated his prize money to the families of jailed dissidents Alexander Ginzburg and Natan Shcharansky. [5] Richard L. Thornburgh, former United States Attorney General and Governor of Pennsylvania, held a state dinner to honor the gesture.

Teaching

Mr. Heifetz has served as professor of violin at three major universities: The Peabody Instituteof the Johns Hopkins University, Carnegie Mellon University,[6] and the University of Maryland College Park. In addition to these positions, Mr. Heifetz has given master classes all over the world. In May 2015, he was one of the featured Masterclass presenters at the Starling-Delay Violin Symposium held at the Juilliard School in New York.

The Heifetz International Music Institute

In 1996, Daniel Heifetz founded the Heifetz International Music Institute for talented young musicians from around the world. It is primarily a six-week summer program that now takes place at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, VA.[7] The institute attracts top faculty from national and international conservatories[8] and offers a program in Heifetz Performance and Communication Training that teaches young musicians to communicate the emotion of music by way of a series of classes in public speaking, voice, drama, movement, and freedom of expression.[9][10] The Heifetz Institute offers career development opportunities to its alumni through a program called Heifetz on Tour.[11] In November 2014, Heifetz described his philosophy behind the communication training offered at the Heifetz Institute in a TEDx presentation given in Charlottesville, Virginia.[12]

References

  1. "Violinist Daniel Heifetz". wmra.org. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  2. "Daniel Heifetz". heifetzinstitute.org. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  3. "Daniel Heifetz". mbc.edu. Mary Baldwin College. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  4. "Tous les lauréats du concours Tchaïkovsky". musiqueclassique.forumpro.fr. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  5. "Violinist Daniel Heifetz to Appear April 13 in Tifereth Israel Concert" (Vol. 64 No. 9). Ohio Jewish Chronicle. February 27, 1986. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  6. Hughes, Allen (March 13, 1986). "Music: Daniel Heifetz, Violin". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  7. Prestidge, Holly. "Heifetz International Music Institute moving to Mary Baldwin campus". The Richmond Times Dispatch. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  8. "Heifetz Institute Faculty". heifetzinstitute.org. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  9. "Communication Training". heifetzinstitute.org. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  10. "Kids' Strings Sing At The Heifetz Institute". npr.org. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  11. "Heifetz on Tour". heifetzinstitute.org. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  12. "Communicating the Emotion in Classical Music". YouTube. TEDx. Retrieved 9 January 2015.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/6/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.