Former Cleveland Orchestra harpist Alice Chalifoux dies at 100

domingo, 3 de agosto de 2008
0 comments

Alice Chalifoux, the diminutive, salty-tongued and beloved former principal harp of the Cleveland Orchestra, died Thursday at the age of 100 at Blue Ridge Hospice in Winchester, Va.

Chalifoux, who became a centenarian in January, was a legend in the music world. She served as principal harp in the Cleveland Orchestra from 1931 to 1974, performing under the ensemble's first five music directors: Nikolai Sokoloff, Artur Rodzinski, Erich Leinsdorf, George Szell and Lorin Maazel.



Alice Chalifoux, seen here in 2000 teaching at the Salzedo Harp Colony in Camden, Maine, served as principal harp of the Cleveland Orchestra from 1931 to 1974. She died Thursday in Virginia at the age of 100.


As principal harp in Cleveland, Chalifoux was the only female member of the orchestra for many years.

"When we began to get women in the orchestra in '43, the men would say, 'We have three women and Alice,' " Chalifoux told The Plain Dealer in 1997. "I had to be one of them to avoid problems. They were very nice to me, very protective. On tour, we'd go to a bar and have a high old time."

When she toured with the orchestra and all those men, Chalifoux used her harp case as a miniature dressing room.

Her wit was famous, often unprintable and national in scope. People magazine wrote about Chalifoux, and she was a guest on Johnny Carson's "Tonight" Show in 1988 with a quartet of harp students, including Trina Struble, who now holds her teacher's chair in the Cleveland Orchestra. (Chalifoux's successor in Cleveland was another student, Lisa Wellbaum, who held the post from 1974 to 2007.)

Chalifoux taught hundreds of students at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Oberlin College, Baldwin-Wallace College and the Salzedo Harp Colony, which she ran during summers in Camden, Maine, for more than half a century.

Chalifoux was born in Birmingham, Ala., where her Canadian-born father -- a former violinist who attended the Paris Conservatory -- ran a department store and her mother played piano, violin and harp and founded the Birmingham Music Study Club. Chalifoux and her three siblings were surrounded by music.

At 11, Chalifoux talked her mother into teaching her to play the harp, which she even studied while attending a convent school.

"The nuns used to scare me to death," Chalifoux said in 1997.

She found the teacher of her dreams in Carlos Salzedo, a renowned French harpist, pianist and composer. Chalifoux studied with him at the Curtis Institute of Music and became the chief champion of his singing, confident harp technique.

A few years after Salzedo began teaching students during summers in Maine in the late 1920s, Chalifoux became his assistant there. Salzedo, who died in 1961 left his house and school to Chalifoux in his will.

Among Chalifoux's top students was Yolanda Kondonassis, who has developed a major international concert and recording career as a solo harpist. In 1997, she talked about her teacher's unique approach to the instrument.

"Her whole approach is to do it with some oomph and power, and certainly finesse when needed," Kondonassis said. "The harp needs to be taken out of the salon and put in the main arena. It doesn't need to be a weak instrument. If delicacy is all there is, it's limiting."

Although she admired Rodzinski most among the Cleveland Orchestra's music directors, she had great admiration for the extremely tough Szell.

"He demanded the utmost precision. Every Monday-morning rehearsal had to be a Carnegie Hall performance," she said. "A lot of people got ulcers and had to go to psychoanalysts. That's one of the main things that made me love being out here [in Moreland Hills]. When I came home, I was in another world."

Chalifoux can be heard on numerous Cleveland Orchestra recordings, including as soloist in Debussy's "Danse sacree et danse profane" under Pierre Boulez (recorded in 1967).

The American Harp Society marked Chalifoux's 100th birthday in June during its national convention in Detroit.

Chalifoux married John Gordon Rideout, an industrial designer who devised their Moreland Hills subdivision, in 1937. He died in 1951 from complications of hypertension.

Chalifoux is survived by a daughter, Alyce Rideout, of Round Hill, Va.; and a niece, Jeanne Chalifoux, of Alexandria, Va.

Rideout said a memorial service will held in Cleveland this fall. She expects former students and colleagues to come from near and far -- even from Australia -- for the event.

-------------------------------
(Que desde el cielo nos ilumine y acompanhe, certeramente ahora sera la arpista principal de Dios), y que descanse en paz.

S.


Leer más »
 

Sponsor

.

{ Blog History }

{ Bloggear }

{ About }

 

© 2010 ~ Manos Mágicas ~, Design by DzigNine
In collaboration with Breaking News, Trucks, SUV