Seymour Lipkin (May 14, 1927 – November 16, 2015) was an American concert pianist, conductor, and educator.
Early life and piano career Lipkin was born in Detroit. At age 11, he entered the Curtis Institute of Music where he studied with David Saperton, Rudolf Serkin and Mieczysław Horszowski"Seymour Lipkin", faculty portrait, Juilliard Journal At age 17 he served as accompanist to Jascha Heifetz on a USO tour"Seymour Lipkin: Eminent pianist and conductor", The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 18, 2015 of Europe during World War II. He received his degree in 1947.
In 1948, he won the Rachmaninoff Piano Contest, beating Gary Graffman."Obituary: Seymour Lipkin 1927–2015", The Juilliard Journal
As a soloist, he performed with the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Conducting and teaching
Lipkin studied conducting under Serge Koussevitzky and then apprenticed with George Szell at the Cleveland Orchestra."Obituary", The Ellsworth American, November 23, 2015 He served as the assistant conductor for the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein. Later he was music director for the Joffrey Ballet and then conductor of the Long Island Symphony Orchestra.
In 1958, Lipkin led the New York City Opera in a performance of Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti, making his conducting debut.
He was a member of the faculty at Juilliard and also taught at Curtis, Manhattan School of Music, and the New England Conservatory. One of his pupils at Curtis was Ghenady Meirson.
In 1987 he became artistic director of Kneisel Hall"Seymour Lipkin Obituary", Bangor Daily News, November 24, 2015 in Blue Hill, Maine, until his death in 2015.
Recordings Lipkin recorded the complete piano sonatas of Beethoven and Schubert. He is the pianist on the Leonard Bernstein recording of Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, and recorded the Weber violin sonatas with Arnold Steinhardt and the Grieg violin sonatas and music by Dohnányi and Weiner with Oscar Shumsky.
References
External links
"In memory of Seymour Lipkin" by Laurie Smukler, Final Note magazine, August 2018