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Kagen, Sergius (1908-1964), pianist, pedagogue, and composer  

Ruth C. Friedberg

Kagen, Sergius (22 August 1908–01 March 1964), pianist, pedagogue, and composer, was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, the son of Isaiah Kagen, a newspaperman, and Vera Lipshitz, a writer and educator. At age nine Sergius was sent to study piano with Glazunov at the Petersburg Conservatory. To escape the famine and destruction that accompanied the Russian Revolution, Kagen’s family fled to Berlin in 1921 in a cattle car, a difficult journey of several months’ duration. There Kagen was enrolled at the Hochschule für Musik and studied piano with Leonid Kreutzer. In 1922 the family began to emigrate to the United States, one member at a time. The fifteen-year-old Kagen, already a veteran of historical and personal turmoil, was the last to follow....

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Mannes, David (1866-1959), violinist, conductor, and educator  

Deborah Griffith Davis

Mannes, David (16 February 1866–25 April 1959), violinist, conductor, and educator, was born in New York City, the son of Henry Mannes, a merchant, and Nathalia Wittkowsky. Mannes’s parents and elder brother had immigrated to the United States in 1860. With financial help from a cousin, Mannes’s father had opened a clothing store on Seventh Avenue in New York City. Mannes was born in the impoverished family’s home above the store. As a young child Mannes created his first violin from a cigar box, a piece of wood, and a string. His parents, hoping to encourage him, bought him a cheap violin and arranged for his intermittent studies. One of his earliest and most influential teachers was John Douglas, an African-American violinist, who had studied in Dresden with Eduard Rappoldi. Douglas was a talented, European-trained violinist who was never able to secure a chair in a symphony orchestra in the United States; he refused to charge Henry Mannes for David’s lessons. In New York, Mannes also studied violin with August Zeiss, Herman Brandt, concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, and Carl Richter Nicolai, Brandt’s successor as concertmaster of the Philharmonic. As a young adult Mannes traveled to Germany to study with Heinrich de Ahna, second violin of the Joachim Quartet, and Karel Haliř, a violin professor at the Hochschule für Musik. His violin studies culminated in six months in Brussels with celebrated violinist Eugène Ysaÿe....

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Cover Mannes, David (1866-1959)

Mannes, David (1866-1959)  

Maker: Arnold Genthe

In 

David Mannes Photograph by Arnold Genthe, 1925. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-G401-T-4872-002).

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Paine, John Knowles (1839-1906), composer, organist, and teacher  

Barbara Owen

Paine, John Knowles (09 January 1839–25 April 1906), composer, organist, and teacher, was born in Portland, Maine, the son of Jacob Small Paine, a proprietor of a music store, and Rebecca Beebe Downes. The family was highly musical. Paine’s grandfather, John K. H. Paine, was an organ builder, bandmaster, and music dealer who had been a fife-major in the War of 1812; his uncle David was an organist, composer, and music teacher; his uncle William was a trombonist and hymn tune writer; and his sister Helen Maria became a noted contralto soloist and vocal teacher in Portland....