Erling Blöndal Bengtsson (8 March 1932 – 6 June 2013) was a Danish

cellist The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

. Born in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

, Bengtsson gave his first public performance there in 1936, when he was four years old. He was admitted at the age of sixteen to the

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

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

where he studied with

Gregor Piatigorsky Gregor Piatigorsky (, ''Grigoriy Pavlovich Pyatigorskiy''; August 6, 1976) was a Russian-born American cello, cellist. Biography Early life Gregor Piatigorsky was born in Dnipro, Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipro, Ukraine) into a Jewish family. As a c ...

, who engaged him as a teaching assistant in 1949. From 1950 to 1953, Bengtsson taught his own cello class at the Institute, before being appointed to the

Royal Danish Academy of Music The Royal Danish Academy of Music, or Royal Danish Conservatory of Music (), in Copenhagen is the oldest professional institution of musical education in Denmark as well as the largest, with approximately 400 students. It was established in 186 ...

in Copenhagen. In 1980, he became a professor at the

Hochschule für Musik Köln ' (, plural: ') is the generic term in German for institutions of higher education, corresponding to ''universities'' and ''colleges'' in English. The term ''Universität'' (plural: ''Universitäten'') is reserved for institutions with the right t ...

. He returned to America in 1990 and taught at the

University of Michigan School of Music The School of Music, Theatre, and Dance (SMTD) is the undergraduate and graduate school for the performing arts of the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. The school was founded in 1880 as the Ann Arbor School of Music ...

until his retirement from academia in 2006. Bengtsson was a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Music The Royal Swedish Academy of Music (), founded in 1771 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in ...

and was conferred the title by

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...

in 1993. Bengtsson made most of his

phonograph A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration Waveform, waveforms are recorded as correspond ...

and CD recordings with the Danish label Danacord. In November 2006, Danacord released the

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

''The Cello and I'', which presented a comprehensive portrait of Bengtsson's career on the seventieth anniversary of his debut. He died in Ann Arbor, Michigan, aged 81. Bengtsson was the subject of a sculpture (''The Musician'') in 1970 by the Icelandic sculptor Ólöf Pálsdóttir, of him playing the cello. In 2014 this was moved to a location in the water, next to the

Iceland Symphony Orchestra Sinfóníuhljómsveit Íslands (Iceland Symphony Orchestra) (ISO) is an Icelandic orchestra based in Reykjavík. Its primary concert venue is the Harpa (concert hall), Harpa Concert Hall. The Iceland Symphony is an autonomous public institution u ...

's new home of the

Harpa ''Harpa'', common name the "harp snails", is a genus of large predatory sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Harpidae.Gofas, S.; Bouchet, P. (2015). Harpa Röding, 1798. In: MolluscaBase (2015). Accessed through: World Register of ...

Reykjavík Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...

References

External links

* 1932 births Danish classical cellists 2013 deaths Musicians from Copenhagen Academic staff of the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln University of Michigan faculty Knights of the Order of the Falcon 20th-century Danish classical musicians 20th-century cellists {{Cellist-stub