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Jascha Heifetz – Brief Biography and Pedagogical Legacy

Born on the 2nd of February in Vilna, Lithuania, the legendary American violinist Jascha Heifetz was perhaps best known for a brilliant and outstanding virtuosity that combined brilliance with precision, an intellectual coolness, emotional fire, a sense of uprightness or nobility, and an infallible musicality.

Trained first by his father, himself an outstanding violinist and concertmaster of the Vilnius Symphony, and then later by the outstanding Russian pedagogue Leopold Auer at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Heifetz was also an outstandingly gifted child prodigy who performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E-minor at the age of six, having started the violin only three years before, and at the age of three. Soon after, Heifetz debuted with the Berlin Philharmonic, performing the Tchaikovsky violin concerto, launching a music career that would see to his being remembered as having delivered startlingly impeccable, and brilliantly as well as remarkably polished interpretations as one of the greatest violinists that ever lived.

Heifetz’s approach to classical music education and teaching came by way of outreach. A keen advocate for both classical as well as contemporary music even at a time when neither was rapidly outmoded, Heifetz would personally transcribe classical works for violin and piano, for example, and better to bring them to concert halls with and through personal performances. He would travel and perform globally, in concert halls across Europe, America, but also Australia, and parts of the the Orient, as well the Middle East. As earlier described, Heifetz editions of works by Bach, Vivaldi, Francois Poulence, and even jazz works by George and Ira Gershwin were performed on tour, and Heifetz, in an effort to champion music by composers of his day and ear, commissioned, also, works by contemporary compeers like Sir William Walton.

Teaching at the University of Southern California – after which a Heifetz chair was established in 1975 – Heifetz worked tireless to build the next generation of classical violinists and educators – giving taped or recorded and televised masterclasses, recitals, and personal instruction to all who came into his studio and his path. HIs teaching legacy lives on and continues into the lives and music of performers like Erick Friedmann (1939-2004), Pierre Amoyal, and Ayke Argus.

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