Pierre Luboshutz

Pierre Luboshutz (June 17, 1891 - April 17, 1971) was a Russian concert pianist.

Born in Odessa, Russia,^[1][2] Luboshutz was initially taught to play the violin by his father.^[1][2] However, he then took up the piano, and entered the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied under Konstantin Igumnov,^[1] and from which he graduated in 1912.^[1][2] His first professional performance, at the Conservatory, was a performance of Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, conducted by Serge Koussevitzky.^[2] Luboshutz then traveled to Paris to study under Édouard Risler.^[1]

Luboshutz's siblings were also musicians—one sister, Lea Luboshutz, became a noted violinist and violin teacher; the other, Anna Luboshutz, became a cellist.^[1] Upon his return to Russia, Luboshutz played in a trio with his sisters and "performed widely in Russia".^[2] In 1919, Luboshutz also accompanied American dancer Isadora Duncan on a tour of Russia.^[2] He traveled to the United States in 1926 as accompanist to a group including violinist Efrem Zimbalist and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.^[1] In 1929, Luboshutz was conducting a master-class at the Paris Conservatory, where he met Genia Nemenoff, who was enrolled as a student.^[3] They fell in love, and in 1931, when she traveled to the United States to join Luboshutz on a concert tour, she became his wife.^[4]

On Jan. 18, 1937, they debuted a two‐piano concert tour under the name Luboshutz-Nemenoffat, with their first performance taking place at The Town Hall in New York City.^[2] The pair became "highly acclaimed as duo pianists",^[2] and at different points in their career received excellent reviews from critics Howard Taubman and Noel Straus.^[2] They "toured widely in the Western hemisphere and Europe and South Africa", and performed at the Tanglewood Music Festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and at Robin Hood Dell with the Philadelphia Orchestra.^[2] In 1956, they were joined by Luboshutz's nephew by his sister Lea, Boris Goldovsky, for a five-week tour highlighting arrangements of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for two and three pianos, as part of the bicentennial of Mozart's birth.^[4][2]

The duo "began to curtail their performing career in the early 1960's",^[4] accepting teaching positions at the New England Conservatory of Music and in the piano department of Michigan State University,^[4] which they headed from 1962 to 1968.^[1] The couple then returned to New York City, and lived between there and Rockport, Maine.

Luboshutz died in Rockport, at the age of 76.^[2] He was survived by his wife, who died in 1989.^[4]

References