Around the Music Festival

Robert Mann, a founding member of the “Juilliard String Quartet”, who worked for fifty years as the first violinist, died on January 1st at his house in New York. He was 97 years old. It was in 1946 that the “Juilliard String Quartet” was created by the professors of the Juilliard School of Music in New York.

William Howard Schuman, a music composer who was a director of music, triggered the proposal. In addition to teaching at the Juilliard, Mann served as the first violinist until 1997. Mann is passionate about the training of young people, teaches thousands of students in master classes around the world, Tokyo Quartet, Emerson String Quartet, etc from the former is the nest.

Mann is deeply related to Japan, and I was impressed by listening to Schönberg’s “Verklärte Nacht” played by the student orchestra when I visited the teaching of the Toho Gakuen master class in 1961.

Since then, we have had friendship with Hideo Saito, and in 1993 the Juilliard String Quartet was invited to “Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto”. Afterwards Mann also repeatedly guest performances at the festival, and at the 2010 festival a concert was also held, “Robert Mann Special Concert – celebrating 90 years old”.

Also in 2015, a documentary film by director Alan Miller who followed the activities as a conductor, a performer, a composer, and an educator after retirement was produced.