Rudolf Firkusny, piano

Born in Moravian Napajedla, Rudolf Firkušní½ started his musical studies with the composers Leoš Janáček and Josef Suk, and the pianist Vilém Kurz. Later he studied with Alfred Cortot and Artur Schnabel. He began performing on the continent of Europe in the 1920s, and made his debuts in London in 1933 and New York in 1938. He escaped the Nazis in 1939, fled to Paris, later settled in New York and became a U.S. citizen.

Firkušní½ had a broad repertoire and performed with skill the works of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Brahms as well as Debussy and Mussorgsky. However, he became known especially for his performances of the Czech composers BedÅ™ich Smetana, Antoní­n DvoÅ™ák, Leoš Janáček, and Bohuslav Martinů (who wrote a number of works for him), as well as recordings of the complete piano works of Janáček.

Firkušní½ was also a devoted chamber player, and among his most prominent partners were cellists Pierre Fournier, Gregor Piatigorsky, János Starker and Lynn Harrell, violinists Nathan Milstein and Erika Morini, violist William Primrose and the Juilliard String Quartet. He also gave many first performances of contemporary composers, not only Czech like his friends Bohuslav Martinů or Ví­tč›zslava Kaprálová, but also of Howard Hanson, Gian Carlo Menotti, Samuel Barber and Alberto Ginastera.

Firkušní½ taught at the Juilliard School in New York, and in Aspen, Colorado as well as in the Berkshire Music Centre in Tanglewood. Among his students were Yefim Bronfman, Eduardus Halim, Alan Weiss, Sara Davis Buechner, Carlisle Floyd, Kathryn Selby, Avner Arad, June de Toth, Richard Cionco, Robin McCabe, Anya Laurence, Natasa Veljkovic and Carlo Grante. After the fall of the communist regime in his homeland (the "Velvet Revolution" of 1989), Firkušní½ returned to Czechoslovakia to perform for the first time after more than 40 years of absence. This was acclaimed as one of the major events of his festival, as well as return of his compatriot and friend Rafael Kubelí­k. He died in Staatsburg, New York in 1994.