Lubka Kolessa
Lubka Kolessa (Ukrainian Любов Олександрівна Колесса, Lyubov Olexanderiwna Kolessa; born May 19, 1902 in Lemberg, Galicia, now Lviv, Ukraine; † August 15, 1997 in Toronto, Canada) was a Ukrainian pianist and music teacher.
Life
Kolessa came from a musical family in which there were several composer and a cellist. Her uncle Filaret Kolessa was a renowned ethno - musicologist researching Ukrainian folk music dedicated to her cousin Mykola Kolessa was an eminent Ukrainian composer and conductor, her sister Chrystia (Vienna 1916 - Ottawa, 1978) was an important cellist.
Your first lesson got Lubka Kolessa of her grandmother, who had for a Chopin pupil studied piano. 1904 the family moved to Vienna, because her father, a university professor Oleksandr Kolessa ( 1867-1945 ) was elected as a deputy to the Austrian parliament. In Vienna, she studied at the Vienna Academy of Music with Louis Thern and Emil von Sauer.
Spectacular 1918 was the award of the just 16 -year-olds the Austrian State Prize and the Bösendorfer Prize. In 1920, she received her diploma. On March 14, 1924, she made her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic. The young pianist was now playing as a soloist with the leading orchestras and conductors in Europe, and had soon acquired the reputation of an outstanding soloist. She gave an almost annual concerts in Berlin.
In 1928 she embarked on a triumphant tour of their home, which was then Soviet Ukraine, who felt strongly connected to them. In late 1928, she played the last classical pianist in Freiburg six pieces on piano rolls for the reproducing piano Welte - Mignon a, including Nestor Nyžankovskijs Variations on a Ukrainian folk song. 1929 and 1930, she attended master classes with Eugen d' Albert, who influenced her style greatly.
Kolessa went to England in 1937. On 21 May 1937 she played in the Ukrainian national costume a concert on British television. In 1938 she undertook a highly successful tour of South America. By 1939, she performed also on the European continent and took in the same year in Germany a series of records for His Master's Voice in. On 13 March 1939 two days before the invasion of the German troops, she married the British diplomats in Prague Tracy Philipps. At the height of her career as a concert pianist, she moved in 1940 from England to Ottawa in Canada. Since 1942, she taught at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, from 1955 to 1966 at the École de Musique Vincent- d'Indy in Montreal from 1960 to 1971, the Montreal McGill University as well as 1959 and 1960 in New York at the Ukrainian Music Institute and also the Conservatoire de Musique et d'Art dramatique de la Province de Quebec. She gave many concerts in North and South America and was considered one of the best and most sought-after pianists of the continent. In 1954, she played again in Europe, among other things, she appeared again with the Berlin Philharmonic, then ended her concert career and devoted himself largely mainly their teaching activities.
2003 was the occasion of her 100th birthday in 2002 a scholarship to your memory set at McGill University, the Lubka Kolessa Piano Scholarship Fund.