Nadia Reisenberg

Life and career

Born in Vilnius, Reisenberg studied under Leonid Nikolayev at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Due to the upheavals of the October Revolution, she and her family returned to Vilnius, then traveled to Warsaw and Germany. They finally settled in New York in 1922.

Reisenberg gave concerts in the 1920s, particularly with her sister Clara Rockmore, but in 1930 went to study again and chose Josef Hofmann as a tutor.

Reisenberg's most important concert activity took place in the 1940s. She was especially praised for her series of concerts encompassing all the piano concertos by Mozart, played (with Alfred Wallenstein conducting) for WOR, which was broadcast in the 1939/40 season. These concerts "made radio history".

Reisenberg continued to perform until the end of her life, and appeared at Carnegie Hall a total of 22 times. While she usually appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, she also gave two recitals at the venue: an all-Tchaikovsky program on November 13, 1943, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the composer's death, and another of unknown repertoire on November 21, 1947. In later years, Reisenberg taught at the Juilliard School and was a frequent juror for the Leventritt Competition. Her notable pupils include pianists Elena Braslavsky, Rami Bar-Niv and the physician Richard Kogan.

Her son Robert Sherman teaches courses on "The Business of Music" at Juilliard and previously wrote music criticism for The New York Times for four decades. He and her other son Alexander co-authored a biography on their mother, Nadia Reisenberg: A Musician's Scrapbook (1985).

Since 2002 the Nadia Reisenberg Recital Award sponsored by The Nadia Reisenberg & Clara Rockmore Foundation takes place every two years at Mannes College in New York City.

Reisenberg and her family were Jewish.

Reisenberg died in 1983 at the age of 78 in New York City, just a year and a half after performing at Carnegie Hall for the last time.