Tools

Print this story

Facebook this

Tweet this

Digg this

Del.icio.us

Email to a friend

Your name

Your email address

Recipients’ email addresses (Up to ten, separated by commas.)

Maestro Siegfried Landau, founding music director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and his wife, Irene Gabriel, died in a fire in their upstate home on Feb. 21.

Both he and his wife were in their 90s, though Landau’s exact age cannot be determined.

For the first 17 years of the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s existence, Landau, a native of Berlin, served as music director, leading the orchestra’s first concert in 1955.

Landau’s leadership virtually created the Brooklyn Philharmonic as the cultural institution it is today. Thanks to his dedication, the orchestra has taken on many new composers and become one of Brooklyn’s most prominent performing arts organizations.

“It was a very important thing. He would always want to do one or two or three different things,” said Maurice Edwards, former philharmonic chief executive. “Back in the ’50s, very few symphonies did. That was something that made the Brooklyn Philharmonic important.”

Landau was trained at the Stern and Klindworth-Scharwenka conservatories, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Trinity College of Music in London.

Landau taught at the New York College of Music as well as at Shearith Israel Synagogue in Manhattan. He taught cantorial lore at the Jewish Theological Seminar and for many years led the 92nd Street Y chorus.

Landau retired to his home in upstate Franklin County after suffering several heart attacks.

The Brooklyn Philharmonic will dedicate “Bridge to the Beyond,” at its Mar. 10 performance, to Landau and Gabriel.

©2007 Community Newspaper Group