Mischa Levitzki

Who was Mischa Levitzki?

Mischa Levitzki was a Russian-born American concert pianist.

Levitzki was born in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, to Jewish parents who were naturalised American citizens on a return trip to Ukraine. He was playing the violin at the age of three, but soon developed an interest in the piano, which he studied in Warsaw with Aleksander Michałowski before making his debut in Antwerp in 1906.

In New York, his father brought him to the attention of Walter Damrosch, who obtained a scholarship for him at the Institute of Musical Art as a pupil of Zygmunt Stojowski, with whom he studied from 1907 to 1911. In 1913 Levitzki entered the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, where he became the youngest student of Ernő Dohnányi and was awarded the Mendelssohn Prize in 1915. By this time he had performed throughout Europe and Scandinavia. He made his American debut in New York on October 17, 1916, at Aeolian Hall, and soon made his permanent home in the United States, later becoming an American citizen. Levitzki concertized worldwide up until the time of his death. He toured in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Asia, making a reputation with his performances of the Romantic repertory.