Menahem Pressler
Menahem Pressler ( born December 16, 1923 in Magdeburg ) is a pianist and founder of the Beaux Arts Trio.
Life
Max Pressler was born in 1923 in Magdeburg, the son of a Jewish gentlemen's outfitter. Pressler was forced to leave as a Jew the school. After Kristallnacht in 1939, the family fled to Palestine via Trieste. Pressler's grandparents and other relatives were victims of the Holocaust.
In 1940 he was invited to the United States, since he has changed his first name. By winning the Debussy Piano Competition in San Francisco, he studied in California, among others, with Bruno Walter and began a career as a soloist. Since 1955 Pressler lives in Bloomington (Indiana). In that year he founded the 50 years leading the world 's Piano Trio Beaux Arts Trio, which was dissolved in 2008. Pressler is a professor at the Indiana University Music School and continued to work as a soloist. With the Beaux Arts Trio Pressler has recorded more than 50 recordings as a solo artist on 30 shots.
Since 1956 Pressler performs regularly in Germany, this fee he donates to charitable purposes in Israel. On the initiative of the trio player Daniel Hope Pressler was naturalized in 2012 in Germany.
In January 2014 he performed at the age of 90 years for the first time at the Berlin Philharmonic.