Felix Galimir

Felix Galimir (May 12, 1910, Vienna – November 10, 1999, New York) was an Austrian-born American-Jewish violinist and music teacher.

He studied with Adolf Bak and Simon Pullman at the Vienna Conservatory from the age of twelve and graduated in 1928. With his three sisters he founded the Galimir Quartet in 1927 to commemorate the centenary of the death of Ludwig van Beethoven. During the early 1930s Galimir studied with Carl Flesch in Berlin and in 1936, he joined the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, however he was later expelled due to his Jewish background. He then emigrated to Palestine to join the newly founded Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

"My mother was Austrian, but as my father was Romanian, we were considered enemy aliens and lived in fear of internment," he said of his family's plight in World War I.

In 1938 Galimir moved to New York, where he founded another quartet and served as member of the NBC Symphony Orchestra from 1939 to 1956.(later, when the NBC ensemble was disbanded, Galimir was concertmaster of the Symphony of the Air.) In the 1950s he began acquiring a reputation as a music teacher and began teaching at The Juilliard School in New York in 1962 and from 1972 at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. In 1976 he began teaching at Mannes College of Music in New York.

Galimir is also noted for his association with the Marlboro Music Festival, where he was in residence every year from 1954 until his death in 1999.

Galimir died on November 10, 1999 of natural causes and has since been honoured with memorial concerts and competitions in his name.

Bibliography

• Felix Galimir Obituary Los Angeles Times
• Felix Galimir Biography