Music
Seymour Lipkin
1927–2015 · pianist, conductor, educator
Detroit-born pianist who entered the Curtis Institute at eleven, toured with Jascha Heifetz at seventeen and became Leonard Bernstein's assistant conductor.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
aged 88- Detroit years
- 1927–1938
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Lipkin was born in Detroit in 1927 and showed such talent that at eleven he was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied with David Saperton, Rudolf Serkin and Mieczysław Horszowski. At seventeen he was Jascha Heifetz's accompanist on a USO tour of wartime Europe. In 1948 he won the Rachmaninoff Piano Contest, beating Gary Graffman, and he appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony. He also studied conducting with Serge Koussevitzky and George Szell, served as Leonard Bernstein's assistant conductor at the New York Philharmonic, conducted New York City Opera and the Joffrey Ballet, and led the Long Island Symphony. He recorded the complete piano sonatas of Beethoven and Schubert, taught at Juilliard, Curtis, the Manhattan School and the New England Conservatory, and from 1987 directed the Kneisel Hall chamber music school in Maine.
Highlights
- Entered the Curtis Institute at age eleven
- Heifetz's accompanist on a World War II USO tour
- Won the 1948 Rachmaninoff Piano Contest
- Assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic under Bernstein
- Recorded all the Beethoven and Schubert piano sonatas