Cécile Staub Genhart (1898–1983) was a Swiss American pianist, pedagogue and teacher. Born in Basel, she played with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 1922. She moved to the United States and joined the faculty of Eastman School of Music in 1926. She spent over 40 years teaching at Eastman.
Early life in Europe
Cécile Staub was born in December 1898 in Basel, Switzerland. She was the youngest of three daughters of Fannie (née Häusler) and Gottfried Staub, a piano professor at
Basel Conservatory
The City of Basel Music Academy (german: Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel) is an institution for music education, located in Basel, Switzerland. It comprises a music school, college of music, and a center for early music research and performance.
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. Her family moved to Zürich when she was 15 years old. At the Zürich Conservatory, she studied with
Volkmar Andreae
Volkmar Andreae (5 July 1879 – 18 June 1962) was a Swiss conductor and composer.
Life and career
Andreae was born in Bern. He received piano instruction as a child and his first lessons in composition with Karl Munzinger. From 1897 to 1900, ...
. She was later educated at the Munich Royal Academy.
She studied independently with the Swiss composer
Emil Frey
Emil Johann Rudolf Frey (24 October 1838 – 24 December 1922) was a Swiss politician, Union Army soldier in the American Civil War and member of the Swiss Federal Council (1890–1897). He served as President of the Swiss Confederation in ...
Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation led him to work closely with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary ...
, she only visited him occasionally to discuss composition and music.
Genhart's solo debut was in 1922 with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 1922. She also made concert debuts in Munich and in Zürich with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. She met Hermann Genhart, one of her father's students in Zürich. The two married and moved to the United States.
Career in the United States
Genhart's husband joined the Eastman School of Music faculty in 1924. She received a full-time appointment as a member of the school's piano faculty in 1926. She gave a recital on February 5, 1927, at Steinway Hall that was written up in the ''New York Times'', which called it "a program of uncommon taste and a performance of unexpected vigor". She was also responsible for the introduction of
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped wit ...
' Piano Concerto No. 2 to Rochester, New York. A ''Journal of the American Liszt Society'' review named her as one of the finest pianists in the United States.
Genhart taught for over 40 years at Eastman. She headed the faculty for piano at the school from 1954 until her retirement in 1971. Among her students were
Robert Silverman
Robert Herschel Silverman, Order of Canada, CM, born May 25, 1938 in Montreal is a noted Canadian pianist and piano pedagogue. Barry Snyder,
Bradford Gowen
Bradford Gowen (born November 11, 1946) has received national attention since winning first prize in the 1978 Kennedy Center/ Rockefeller Foundation International Competition for Excellence in the Performance of American Music. He earned his bachel ...
,
Joseph Fennimore
Joseph Fennimore (born 16 April 1940) is an American composer, pianist and teacher best known for his works for piano and chamber ensembles, ranked by Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Philip Kennicott as "one of this country's finest composers." His ...
Stewart L. Gordon
Stewart Lynell Gordon is an American musician, teacher, writer, editor, composer, and impresario. Gordon is Professor of Keyboard Studies at the USC Thornton School of Music of the University of Southern California.
As a student, Stewart Gordon ...
. Gordon wrote his doctoral dissertation, "Cecile Staub Genhart; her biography and her concepts of piano playing" in 1965. In 1974, she donated approximately $50,000 to establish a piano scholarship fund at the Eastman School of Music.
Genhart died in 1983. A portrait of her hangs in the Cominsky Promenade of the Eastman School of Music.