Eleanor Sokoloff

Eleanor Sokoloff
Background information
Born	(1914-06-16) June 16, 1914 Cleveland, Ohio, United States
Genres	Classical
Instruments	Piano
Website	http://www.curtis.edu/faculty/faculty-bios-by-name/eleanor-sokoloff.html

Eleanor Sokoloff, née Blum (born June 16, 1914), is an American pianist and famous pedagogue of piano. She has taught on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music since 1936.

Biography

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Sokoloff was the daughter of a barber. Her mother, a housewife, was an amateur singer and encouraged her daughter's musical interests. She began her studies with Ruth Edwards at the Cleveland Institute of Music at the age of eight. In 1931, she enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music, and studied with David Saperton. She later studied the duo-piano repertoire with Vera Brodsky and Harold Triggs and eventually formed a duo team with her husband, pianist Vladimir Sokoloff. Vladimir was also on the piano faculty at Curtis and from 1938 to 1950 was the pianist for the Philadelphia Orchestra. Their daughter Laurie is the principal piccoloist of the Baltimore Symphony and their daughter Kathy is the Director of Development at the Settlement Music School.

In 1936, Sokoloff joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music, first as a piano instructor to non-piano majors (1936 to 1949) and since 1950 as a full-fledged member of the piano faculty. Since then, more than seventy-five of her students have been chosen to perform as soloists with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Among her students are pianists Hugh Sung, Lambert Orkis, Marcantonio Barone, Susan Starr, Claire Huangci, Kit Armstrong, Craig Sheppard, Meng-Chieh Liu, Leon McCawley, Keith Jarrett and Sean Kennard. In 2001, in recognition of her tenure, Sokoloff received the Curtis Alumni Award. She turned 100 in June 2014.^[1]

References

Sources

• Eleanor Sokoloff: Sharing Her Gift
• Ebony and ivory - and longevity: A master's influence reverberates over 73 years at Curtis., Peter Dobrin, The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 15, 2009

External links

• Bio of Eleanor Sokoloff at The Curtis Institute of Music