Vardi, Emanuel
Vardi, Emanuel
Vardi, Emanuel, outstanding Israeli-American violist; b. Jerusalem, April 21, 1917. He began to study the viola in his youth, and also studied painting at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts. In 1940 he went to the U.S., and soon established himself as an outstanding virtuoso in the limited field of viola literature. He arranged works by Bach, Frescobaldi, Tartini, Paganini, and Chopin for viola; also commissioned works for the viola from Michael Colgrass, Alan Hovhaness, Alan Shulman, and others. For variety’s sake, he made an incursion into the conducting arena; was music director of the South Dakota Sym. Orch. (1978-82). In his leisure time, he painted. In 1951 he won the International Prize of Rapallo, and had one-man exhibits in N.Y., South Dakota, and Italy
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire