Adolph Baller
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Adolph Baller(1909, Brody, Austrian Galicia(now Ukraine) - 1994, Palo Alto) was an Austrian-American Pianist.
Baller was born in 1909 in Brody, Galicia, then part of Poland. At age 8, he went to Vienna to study piano with a former student of Franz Liszt and at 13 he performed with the Vienna Philharmonic. In March 1938, Nazi soldiers learned that he was a pianist and a Jew, and arrested him, beat him and crushed his hands. Baller's fiancée, Edith Strauss-Neustadt, interceded on his behalf with the Polish Consul in Vienna and helped to restore his hands so that he could resume his career. The couple escaped to Budapest, where they were married before coming to the United States in 1938.
The Ballers met violinist Yehudi Menuhin and Gabor Rejto in New York, and beginning in 1941 they lived with their daughter, Nina, at Menuhin's Alma Estate in Los Gatos. Under Menuhin's patronage, Baller, Rejto and Andor Toth formed the Alma Trio in 1942-43. For several years Baller accompanied Menuhin in performances throughout the world and performed in chamber concerts. Baller died at his home in Palo Alto in 1994.
