Robert Mann
| Robert Mann | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 19, 1920 Portland, Oregon, U.S. |
| Alma mater |
Portland Youth Philharmonic Juilliard School |
| Occupation | Composer, violinist, educator |
| Years active | 1933–present |
| Known for | Founder of the Juilliard String Quartet |
Robert Mann (born July 19, 1920) is a violinist, composer, conductor, and founding member of the Juilliard String Quartet, as well as a faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music. Mann, the first violinist at Juilliard, served on the school's string quartet for over fifty years until his retirement in 1997.
Mannhas played and performed on many instruments, including those made by Antonio Stradivari and John Young. Mann was the subject of a 2014 documentary, titled Speak the Music.
Mann was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. His father worked as a tailor and a grocer. Mann began his study of the violin at age nine; at 13, he was accepted into the class of Edouard Hurlimann, concertmaster of the Portland Symphony. He attended the Portland Youth Philharmonic, but had planned to become a forest ranger in his youth.
In 1938, at the age of eighteen, he moved to New York City to enroll in the Juilliard School, where he studied violin with Edouard Dethier, composition with Bernard Wagenaar and Stefan Wolpe, and conducting with Edgar Schenkman. Mann won the prestigious Naumburg Competition in 1941 and made his New York debut two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Shortly after his graduation from Juilliard, he was drafted into the US Army.
At the invitation of Juilliard’s president, William Schuman, Mann founded the Juilliard String Quartet in 1946 and served as the ensemble’s first violinist until his retirement from the quartet in 1997. The quartet, which celebrated its golden jubilee during the 1996–97 season, had played approximately 5,000 concerts and performed more than 600 works, including some 100 premieres. Its discography includes recordings of more than 100 compositions. They have received three Grammy awards for their recordings.
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