Igor Kipnis

Igor Kipnis (27 September 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a well-known American harpsichordist, pianist and conductor.

The son of Metropolitan Opera bass Alexander Kipnis, he was born on 27 September 1930 in Berlin, where his father was singing with the Berlin State Opera. Although Jewish, the elder Kipnis was popular in Germany during Nazism's rise to prominence. Employing the stratagem of a vocal injury, the elder Kipnis fled Germany for Austria. When the Nazis annexed that country, the family was touring Australia. From there they moved to the US in 1938. He learned the piano with his maternal grandfather, Heniot Levy; attended the Westport School of Music, and received his B.A. from Harvard University, where he served as the Program Director of WHRB, Harvard's undergraduate radio station. He studied harpsichord with Fernando Valenti, and made his concert debut in New York in 1959. He was an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa (Harvard, 1977), and in 1993 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by Illinois Wesleyan University.

Kipnis lived in Redding, Connecticut. For five years he was President and Artistic Director of the Friends of Music of Fairfield County, the Connecticut chamber music series, in addition to having served thirteen years as co-artistic director of the Connecticut Early Music Festival. Dr. Kipnis was also a member of the faculty of Fairfield University in the early 1970s, teaching between tours.

He married Judith Robison on 6 January 1953. Their son, Jeremy R. Kipnis, became a film and record producer. Igor and Judith Kipnis divorced in May, 1996, but reconciled shortly before her death on 1 March 2001.

He died in his home in Redding, Connecticut of renal cancer. His last concert was a solo piano recital in October 2001, in San Francisco.

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