Laurence Lesser

Laurence Lesser (* 1938 in Los Angeles ) is an American cellist and music teacher.

Lesser studied mathematics at Harvard University (degree summa cum laude ). He received cello lessons from Gabor Reijto , after completing his mathematics studies in 1961 as a Fulbright scholar from Gaspar Cassadó in Cologne and finally from Gregor Piatigorsky at the University of Southern California , where he taught himself. In 1965 he was the first to play Arnold Schoenberg's Cello Concerto since Emanuel Feuermann (1938) , and later he made the first recording of this work. In 1970 he went to Baltimore and taught at the Peabody Institute .

In 1974 Gunther Schuller invited him to take over the direction of the cello department at the New England Conservatory . In 1983 he became President of the Conservatory and held this position until 1996. His numerous students included Trey Lee , Andres Diaz , Nicholas Tzavaras , Damien Ventula , Amit Peled , Bong Ihn Koh , Evan Drachman , Xiaojia Xu , Injung Song , Sam Magill , Leonardo Altino , Jan Bastiaan Neven , Suren Bagratuni , Carter Brey , Alan Stepansky , Roger Lebow , Walter Haman , Nico Olarte-Hayes , Tony Rymer , Jonathan Dormand , Karen Hyo Min Kang , Paula Kiffner , Yeesun Kim , Young-Chang Cho , Ahrim Kim , Denise Djokic , David Eggert , Martin Storey , David Hardy , Jungshin Lewis , Kangho Lee , Wonhee Kim and Yina Tong .

In 1976 Lesser premiered Gian Carlo Menotti's Fantasia for cello and orchestra with the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa . He has appeared as a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra , the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and has taken part in many international music festivals as a chamber musician. During the Bach year 2000 he played a cycle of all of the composer's cello suites several times, while his wife Masuko Ushioda Bach performed all of the works for solo violin. In 2005 the Eva Janzer Memorial Cello Center at Indiana University named him Chevalier du Violoncelle . In 2010 he made a complete recording of all Beethoven's works for cello and piano on Bridge Records with pianist HaeSun Paik . Lesser plays a cello made by the brothers Antonio and Girolamo Amati in 1622.

In 1994 Lesser was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

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• Laurence Lesser at Discogs (English)
• New England Conservatory - Laurence Lesser
• New England Conservatory - Laurence Lesser
• ICS - Conversation with Laurence Lesser
• cellist.nl - Laurence Lesser