John Newmark

John Newmark , born as Hans Joseph Neumark (born June 12, 1904 in Bremen , † October 14, 1991 in Montreal ) was a German-Canadian pianist.

Life

Neumark studied piano with Karl Boerner in Bremen from 1912 to 1919 and with Anni Eisele in Leipzig from 1920 to 1921. At the age of seventeen he played in Berlin for Coenraad V. Bos, who predicted a bright future for him. At first, however, at his father's request, he began studying painting in Dresden. There he met the violinist Szymon Goldberg in 1925 , with whom he gave concerts. In 1929 he returned to Bremen and founded the Society for New Chamber Music Bremen with the cellist August Wenziger . From 1930 to 1933 he was director of the music programs at Radio Bremen . Since he was no longer allowed to perform publicly in Germany from 1933 onwards due to the Aryan paragraph , he toured Spain with Goldberg until 1936.

In 1939 Newmark emigrated to London, where he gave concerts with Emmy Heim and Max Rostal , among others . As an enemy alien , he was interned in 1940 on the Isle of Man and later in Canada. From 1942 he studied conducting with Ettore Mazzoleni in Toronto. The singer Frances James hired him in 1943 as a piano accompanist for a tour through Canada.

From 1944 Newmark lived in Montreal. In the same year he played all of Ludwig van Beethoven's piano trios with Alexander Brott and Roland Leduc on the CBC radio, and in the following year he played 19 Mozart violin sonatas with Noël Brunet . With Marie-Thérèse Paquin he played original compositions for piano four hands in 1946.

In 1949 Newmark gave concerts with Goldberg in South America and accompanied the singer Kathleen Ferrier on two North American tours. With this he recorded song cycles by Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms at Decca Records in 1950 ; the recording of Brahms' Four Serious Songs won the 1952 Grand Prix du Disque . In 1953 he began his longstanding relationship with Maureen Forrester . In total, Newmark has accompanied more than 200 Canadian and international musicians in his career. From 1972 to 1975 he was musical advisor to the Opéra du Québec .

In later years Newmark also resorted to his training as a painter and had exhibitions at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1962), the Mansfield Book Mart in Montreal (1963) and the Le Bouquinier in Quebec City. In 1975 he completed his memoirs, from which he read aloud in 1979 on the CBC 's An Accompanist's ABC radio series . The station paid tribute to him in 1982 in a one-hour documentary broadcast. In 1973 he was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada , in 1979 he received the Canadian Music Council Medal and in 1988 the Prix ​​Denise-Pelletier of the Government of Ontario .

swell

• John Newmark ( English, French ) In: Encyclopedia of Music in Canada . published by The Canadian Encyclopedia .

notes

1. ↑ On this measure in general see Annette Puckhaber: A privilege for a few. German-speaking migration to Canada in the shadow of National Socialism. Series: Studies in North American History, Politics and Society. Lit, Münster 2002. Zugl. Diss. Phil. University of Trier , 2000 full text