Happy Birthday Madame K!

I'm sure I'm not alone in setting this day aside as a special one: November 1 is the birthday of Gwendolyn Koldofsky, one of the pioneers in this field, and who started the world's first degree program in accompanying at the University of Southern California back in 1949. I only had a short time to work with Madame K at the Academy of the West in 1989, but I've had the honor of knowing many people who studied with and were guided by her.

Gwendolyn Koldofsky's entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia

Previous articles:

Rare Footage of Gwendolyn Koldofsky Playing in Lotte Lehmann Master Class
Koldofsky Memorial Benefit Recital
Some Ideas on How to Learn a Song or Aria
Last year's happy birthday post

Rare Footage of Gwendolyn Koldofsky Playing in Lotte Lehmann Master Class

In the short time that I studied with Gwendolyn Koldofsky at the Academy of the West, she often spoke fondly of her longtime collaboration with Lotte Lehmann. I was very glad to have recently found a six-and-a-half minute YouTube clip of a 1961 Lotte Lehmann master class, in which she coaches Jeannine Wagner singing Brahms' Sonntag with none other than Koldofsky herself at the piano. This master class dates from the time after Lehmann had stopped singing professionally, however, she still sings one of the more convincing performances of Sonntag you'll ever hear, an octave lower than written. For all those who knew Lehmann and Koldofsky, here's a rare moment to see them in their prime over 45 years ago...

Happy Birthday Madame K

Gwendolyn Koldofsky, one of the most important pioneers in the field of collaborative piano and creator of the first piano accomanying degree program, was born on this day in 1906 and would be 101 if she were alive today. From the article about her in the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada:

Gwendolyn Koldofsky (b Williams). Accompanist, voice coach, b Bowmanville, Ont, 1 Nov 1906. She studied piano in Toronto with Viggo Kihl, in London with Tobias Matthay and (accompanying) Harold Craxton, and in Paris with Marguerite Hasselmans. She married the violinist Adolph Koldofsky in 1943 and lived in Toronto until 1944. After spending a year in Vancouver she settled in 1945 in Los Angeles, where she was engaged to teach accompanying - a position created for her - at the School of Music of the University of Southern California, which she held until her retirement in 1990.

I wonder if there are any musicians around that still remember her from the years she freelanced (if that's what it was called back then) in Toronto and Vancouver. I only studied with Madame K for one summer at the Academy of the West in 1989, but was very grateful to have been given the chance to work with her even for only six weeks.

Here's another great bio of Koldofsky from a notice for a benefit recital to be held tonight at USC featuring Alan Smith, Kevin Fitz-Gerald and others. About the annual recital:

After the early death of her husband, Gwendolyn Koldofsky established this annual benefit recital in his memory at USC, the proceeds of which would go to support the accompanying program she had founded. The Koldofsky Benefit Recital has featured some of the world's musical luminaries, many of them graduates and/or faculty members of the USC Thornton School of Music. After her death in 1998, the event was renamed "The Gwendolyn and Adolph Koldofsky Memorial Benefit Recital" to honor both musicians.