Efrem Zimbalist Sr. ( – February 22, 1985) was a concert

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

ist,

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

, conductor and director of the

Curtis Institute of Music The Curtis Institute of Music is a private conservatory in Philadelphia. It offers a performance diploma, Bachelor of Music, Master of Music in opera, and a Professional Studies Certificate in opera. All students attend on full scholarship. Hi ...

Early life

Efrem Zimbalist Sr. was born on April 9, 1888, O. S., equivalent to April 21, 1889, in the Gregorian calendar, as reported in many newspaper obituaries, in the southwestern

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

city of

Rostov-on-Don Rostov-on-Don ( rus, Ростов-на-Дону, r=Rostov-na-Donu, p=rɐˈstof nə dɐˈnu) is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the East Eu ...

, the son of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

parents Maria (

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Litvinoff) and Aron Zimbalist (Цимбалист, Russian pronunciation ), who was a conductor. By the age of nine, Efrem Zimbalist was first violin in his father's orchestra. At age 12 he entered the

Saint Petersburg Conservatory The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory (russian: Санкт-Петербургская государственная консерватория имени Н. А. Римского-Корсакова) (formerly known as th ...

and studied under

Leopold Auer Leopold von Auer ( hu, Auer Lipót; June 7, 1845July 15, 1930) was a Hungarian violinist, academic, conductor, composer, and instructor. Many of his students went on to become prominent concert performers and teachers. Early life and career Au ...

. He graduated from the Conservatory in 1907 after winning a gold medal and the Rubinstein Prize, and by age 21 was considered one of the world's greatest violinists.

Career

After graduation he debuted in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

(playing the Brahms Concerto) and

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in 1907 and in the United States in 1911, with the Symphony Orchestra. In 1912, he played the Glazunov Concerto in a concert marking

Leopold Stokowski Leopold Anthony Stokowski (18 April 1882 – 13 September 1977) was a British conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra and his appeara ...

's first appearance with the

London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...

. He then settled in the United States. He did much to popularize the performance of classical music in his adopted country. In 1917, he was elected as an honorary member of

Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity of America (colloquially known as Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, Phi Mu Alpha, or simply Sinfonia) () is an American collegiate social fraternity for men with a special interest in music. The fraternity is open to men "w ...

, the national fraternity for men in music, by the fraternity's Alpha Chapter at the

New England Conservatory of Music The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a Private college, private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest independent music Music school, conservatory in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. The ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. He retired as a violinist in 1949, but returned in 1952 to give the first performance of the Violin Concerto by

Gian Carlo Menotti Gian Carlo Menotti (, ; July 7, 1911 – February 1, 2007) was an Italian composer, librettist, director, and playwright who is primarily known for his output of 25 operas. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept h ...

, which is dedicated to him. He retired again in 1955. He served as a juror of the

International Tchaikovsky Competition The International Tchaikovsky Competition is a classical music competition held every four years in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Russia, for pianists, violinists, and cellists between 16 and 32 years of age and singers between 19 and 32 years of ...

in 1962 and 1966.

Curtis Institute

In 1928, Zimbalist began teaching at the

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. He was its director from 1941 to 1968. His pupils included such distinguished musicians as

Lynn Blakeslee Lynn may refer to: People and fictional characters * Lynn (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Lynn (surname) * The Lynns, a 1990s American country music duo consisting of twin sisters Peggy and Patsy Lynn * Lynn ...

, Aaron Rosand, Oscar Shumsky,

Norman Carol Norman Carol (born July 1, 1928) is an American violinist and former concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra for 29 years with conductors Eugene Ormandy, Riccardo Muti, and Wolfgang Sawallisch. Stanisław Skrowaczewski's Violin Concerto was ...

Joseph Silverstein Joseph Harry Silverstein (March 21, 1932 – November 21, 2015) was an American violinist and conductor. Known to family, friends and colleagues as "Joey", Silverstein was born in Detroit. As a youth, Silverstein studied with his father, Bernard ...

Jascha Brodsky Jascha Brodsky (June 6, 1907 – March 3, 1997) was a Russian-American violinist and teacher. Born in Kharkiv, in the Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire (in present-day Ukraine), he began his violin studies with his violinist father at the ...

John Dalley John Dalley (born 3 March 1935 in Madison, Wisconsin) is an American violinist. He was raised in a musical family. His father was an orchestra conductor, violinist, composer, instrumental teacher, and music educator. His mother, from Bloomington, ...

Michael Tree Michael Tree (February 19, 1934 – March 30, 2018), born Michael Applebaum, was an American violist. Biography Tree was born in Newark, New Jersey. His principal studies were with Efrem Zimbalist on violin and viola at the Curtis Institute o ...

Felix Slatkin Felix Slatkin (December 22, 1915 – February 8, 1963) was an American violinist and conductor. Biography Slatkin was born in St. Louis, Missouri to a Jewish family originally named Zlotkin (though it is not certain) from areas of the Russian Emp ...

Shmuel Ashkenasi Shmuel Ashkenasi ( he, שמואל אשכנזי; born January 11, 1941) is an Israeli violinist and teacher. Biography Born in Tel Aviv on January 11, 1941, he began his musical training at the Musical Academy of Tel-Aviv studying with legendary p ...

Harold Wippler Harold Wippler (September 19, 1928 – October 8, 2022) was an American violinist and teacher from Denver. Wippler played as concertmaster for the Denver Symphony Orchestra, now the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, with his wife Charleen, whom he marri ...

Leonid Bolotine Leonid (russian: Леонид ; uk, Леонід ; be, Леанід, Ljeaníd ) is a Slavic version of the given name Leonidas. The French version is Leonide. People with the name include: *Leonid Andreyev (1871–1919), Russian playwright a ...

, Takaoki Sugitani, Helen Kwalwasser, and Hidetaro Suzuki. ()

Compositions

His own compositions include a violin concerto, a piano concerto (1959), the ''American Rhapsody'', a

tone poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term ''T ...

called ''

Daphnis and Chloe ''Daphnis and Chloe'' ( el, Δάφνις καὶ Χλόη, ''Daphnis kai Chloē'') is an ancient Greek novel written in the Roman Empire, the only known work of the second-century AD Greek novelist and romance writer Longus. Setting and style ...

'', a Fantasy on themes from ''

The Golden Cockerel ''The Golden Cockerel'' ( rus, Золотой петушок, Zolotoy petushok ) is an opera in three acts, with short prologue and even shorter epilogue, composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, his last opera he completed before his death in 1908. ...

'' by

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov . At the time, his name was spelled Николай Андреевичъ Римскій-Корсаковъ. la, Nicolaus Andreae filius Rimskij-Korsakov. The composer romanized his name as ''Nicolas Rimsk ...

, a Fantasy on Bizet's ''

Carmen ''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Carmen (novella), novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first perfo ...

'' (1936), and a piece called ''

Sarasate Pablo Martín Melitón de Sarasate y Navascués (; 10 March 1844 – 20 September 1908), commonly known as Pablo de Sarasate, was a Spanish (Navarrese) violin virtuoso, composer and conductor of the Romantic period. His best known works inclu ...

ana'', for viola and piano. He also wrote an

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

, ''Landara'', which premiered in 1956.

Public life

Pablo Casals Pau Casals i Defilló (Catalan: ; 29 December 187622 October 1973), usually known in English by his Castilian Spanish name Pablo Casals,

writes in his biography, ''Joys and Sorrows'', that Zimbalist was a member of the 's Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy which Casals founded and chaired in 1936.

Personal life

Zimbalist married the famous American

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

Alma Gluck Alma Gluck (May 11, 1884October 27, 1938) was a Romanian-born American soprano. Biography Gluck was born as Reba Feinsohn to a Jewish family in Iași, Romania, the daughter of Zara and Leon Feinsohn. Gluck moved to the United States at a you ...

and they toured together for a time. Alma Gluck died in 1938. In 1943, having been a widower for five years, he married the Curtis Institute of Music's founder, Mary Louise Curtis Bok, daughter of publisher

Cyrus Curtis Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis (June 18, 1850June 7, 1933) was an American publisher of magazines and newspapers, including the '' Ladies' Home Journal'' and ''The Saturday Evening Post''.Ingham, John N. Biographical Dictionary of American Busines ...

and

Louisa Knapp Curtis Louisa Knapp Curtis (October 21, 1851 – February 25, 1910), (also known as Louisa Knapp), was an American columnist and the first editor of the '' Ladies' Home Journal'' from 1883 to 1889. It became one of the most popular magazines published ...

, and 14 years his senior. Although he continued to consider himself ethnically Jewish, he found himself attracted, along with his wife Alma, to Anglican Christianity, and they regularly attended the Episcopal Church in New Hartford. Efrem Jr. and Maria were both christened there, and the couple placed Efrem in an Episcopal boarding school in New Hampshire. Efrem Jr. later became active in evangelical circles and was one of the founders of

Trinity Broadcasting Network The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) is an international Christian-based broadcast television network and the world's largest religious television network. TBN was headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, until March 3, 2017, when it sold its ...

.Malan, Roy (2004). Efrem Zimbalist: A Life. Amadeus Press. pp. 139–142. . He died in 1985, at the age of 95. His and Alma's son,

Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (November 30, 1918 – May 2, 2014) was an American actor known for his starring roles in the television series ''77 Sunset Strip'' and ''The F.B.I.'' He is also known as recurring character "Dandy Jim Buckley" in the se ...

, and their granddaughter, Stephanie Zimbalist, both became popular actors, primarily in television. Efrem Jr. portrayed Dandy Jim Buckley in ''

Maverick Maverick, Maveric or Maverik may refer to: History * Maverick (animal), an unbranded range animal, derived from U.S. cattleman Samuel Maverick Aviation * AEA Maverick, an Australian single-seat sportsplane design * General Aviation Design Burea ...

'' opposite

James Garner James Garner (born James Scott Bumgarner; April 7, 1928 – July 19, 2014) was an American actor. He played leading roles in more than 50 theatrical films, including '' The Great Escape'' (1963) with Steve McQueen; Paddy Chayefsky's ''The Ameri ...

, and the lead characters in the television series ''

77 Sunset Strip ''77 Sunset Strip'' is an American television Private investigator#PIs in fiction, private detective drama series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Roger Smith (actor), Roger Smith, Richard Long (actor), Richard Long (fr ...

'' and ''

The FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

''. Granddaughter Stephanie played the female lead in ''

Remington Steele ''Remington Steele'' is an American television series co-created by Robert Butler and Michael Gleason. The series, starring Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan, was produced by MTM Enterprises and first broadcast on the NBC network from Oc ...

'' opposite

Pierce Brosnan Pierce Brendan Brosnan (; born 16 May 1953) is an Irish actor and film producer. He is best known as the fifth actor to play secret agent James Bond in the Bond film series, starring in four films from 1995 to 2002 (''GoldenEye'', ''Tomorrow ...

References

Further

* ''Efrem Zimbalist: A Life'' – by Roy Malan. Pompton Plains, NJ: Amadeus Press, 2004 * ''Great Masters of the Violin'' – by Boris Schwarz. Simon and Schuster, 1983

External links

*
Efram Zimbalist recordings
at the

Discography of American Historical Recordings The Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) is a database of master recordings made by American record companies during the 78rpm era. The DAHR provides some of these original recordings, free of charge, via audio streaming, along with ...

Streaming audio of Efrem Zimbalist recordings
from the

National Jukebox The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zimbalist, Efrem 1889 births 1985 deaths Musicians from Rostov-on-Don People from Don Host Oblast Efrem Russian Jews Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States American people of Russian-Jewish descent Converts to Anglicanism from Judaism American classical violinists Male classical violinists American male violinists Curtis family Jewish American classical musicians Jewish classical musicians Jewish American classical composers Jewish classical violinists Russian classical violinists American opera composers Male opera composers 20th-century classical composers American male classical composers American classical composers 20th-century classical violinists 20th-century American composers 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century American Episcopalians 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American violinists