Gregor Benko

Gregor Benko (born August 4, 1944 in Cleveland / Ohio ) is an American publicist, record producer and collector of historical piano recordings.

Benko attended Kalamazoo College and then worked in a record store. In 1964, he and Albert Petrak founded the International Piano Archives in Cleveland , which were renamed the International Piano Library after moving to New York . In 1977 the collection, which now comprised around 40,000 historical records, tapes, piano rolls, books and objects, was transferred to the University of Maryland Library .

Based on the collected material, Benko gave courses for piano students at the university, continued to work as an advisor to the collection now known as the International Piano Archives of Maryland , wrote articles, discographies and reviews for music magazines and cover texts for records of historical recordings by Rachmaninov , Hofmann , Godowsky and others the labels RCA Records , Decca Records and Columbia Records . On HomophoneCD he released the album The Muse Surmounted , which combines recordings by Florence Foster Jenkins with those of eleven contemporary pianists.

In addition, he lectured at music festivals and at numerous American universities and worked as a consultant for historical musical materials at various libraries. For two years he was director of special projects at PolyGram and two years partner of the owner of Lion Heart Autographs , a company that deals in historical documents.

More recently, he has given joint lectures with New York music critic and author Harold C. Schonberg , whose 2003 Carnegie Recital Hall memorial service he chaired. He is working on a television documentary and a biography of the pianist Józef Hofmann.