Janee Munroe (22 June 1923, Portland, Oregon-10 September 2006) was an American violist and the wife of cellist Lorne Munroe.[1][2]
Munroe spent her childhood and youth in Portland where she attended Grant High School and played first viola in the city's youth orchestra. During her senior year of high school she won a scholarship to attend the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She entered Curtis in 1941 where she studied with William Primrose until her graduation in 1945 with a diploma in Viola performance. While at Curtis she met cellist Lorne Munroe, whom she married in Paris shortly after her graduation from college. She next began studies with Boris Kroyt of the internationally renowned Budapest Quartet. During this time Munroe performed frequently as a guest artist with the Budapest Quartet. She later became a violist with the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra and then the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C..[2]
Munroe and her husband ultimately ended up settling in the Philadelphia area (Wynnewood, Pennsylvania) in 1951 where she taught violin, piano and viola privately. Her husband worked as principal cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the two of them performed together in a piano quartet, the Gofriller Piano Quartet, in concerts in the Philadelphia area. In 1964 Lorne became principae cellist for the New York Philharmonic and Janee joined the viola faculty at the Juilliard School. Janee occasionally toured with the New York Philharmonic as a substitute violist.[2]
Janee died in Warren, Maine of heart failure on 10 September 2006 at the age 83. She was survived by her husband and their 10 sons and one daughter, in addition to many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.[2]