Harry Adaskin

Harry Adaskin OC (born October 6, 1901 in Riga , † April 7, 1994 in Vancouver ) was a Canadian violinist and music teacher.

Murray and John Adaskin's brother came to Toronto with his parents as a child. He studied from 1913 to 1918 at the Toronto Conservatory of Music with Bertha Drechsler Adamson and from 1918 to 1922 at the Canadian Academy of Music with Luigi von Kunits . He continued his training with Leon Sametini in Chicago and with Henri Czaplinski at the Hambourg Conservatory in Toronto (1922-23), took private lessons with Marcel Chailley in 1930 and 1931 and attended the interpretation classes of Jacques Thibaud and Georges Enesco in Paris in 1931 .

From 1917-18 Adaskin played the violin in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under Frank Welsman . In the early 1920s he played the second violin in the Academy String Quartet and the first violin in Milton Blackstone's string quartet. From 1923 to 1938 he was second violinist in the Hart House String Quartet . The ensemble, supported by Vincent and Alice Massey , was Canada's first internationally recognized string quartet and has also performed in the USA and Europe.

In 1923 Adaskin formed a duo with the pianist Frances Marr , who became his wife in 1926. The duo premiered numerous works by Canadian composers, including Hector Gratton's Réminiscence (1928), Healey Willan's Sonata No. 1 (1930), Patricia Blomfield Holts Pastorale and Finale (1936) and Suite No. 2 (1940), John Weinzweig's Sonata (1942), several works by Barbara Pentland , Jean Coulthard's Two Sonatinas (1946) and Poem (1948), Robert Turner's Sonata (1956) and the Divertimento No. 1 by his brother Murray, with whom he played the second violin. In addition, the duo's repertoire included a wide selection of works by US and European composers of the 20th century.

Adaskin had been giving private violin lessons in Toronto since 1915. He also taught at Upper Canada College from 1938 to 1941 and at the Toronto Conservatory of Music from 1941 to 1946 . From 1946 he taught at the University of British Columbia . Besides his brother Murray u. a. Adolph Koldofsky , Maurice Solway and Harold Sumberg .

From 1938 and with interruptions until 1946, Adaskin hosted the program Musically Speaking on the CBC . From 1943 to 1946 he was the commentator on the Canadian broadcast of the New York Philharmonic Sunday Broadcasts . From 1976-77 he appeared as a live presenter of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra's concert series . Between 1977 and 1981 he worked as a narrator on three documentaries under the title The Passionate Canadians . He published his memoirs in two volumes under the title A Fiddler's World (1977) and A Fiddler's Choice (1982).

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• The Canadian Encyclopedia: Harry Adaskin
• University of British Columbia Archives - Harry Adaskin Fund (PDF; 522 kB)