Elkus, Albert (Israel)
Elkus, Albert (Israel)
Elkus, Albert (Israel), American composer and teacher, father of Jonathan (Britton) Elkus; b. Sacramento, April 30, 1884; d. Oakland, Feb. 19, 1962. He studied at the Univ. of Calif. (M.Lit., 1907). He also studied piano with Hugo Mansfeldt and Oscar Weil in San Francisco, and later with Harold Bauer and Josef Lhevinne. He went to Vienna, where he took lessons in conducting with Franz Schalk and counterpoint with Karl Prohaska, and then took courses with Robert Fuchs and Georg Schumann in Berlin. Returning to the U.S., he taught at Dominican Coll. in San Rafael, Calif. (1924–31); was on the faculty of the San Francisco Cons. (1923–25; 1933–37), serving as its director (1951–57); he also taught at Mills Coll. in Oakland (1929–44) and at the Univ. of Calif, at Berkeley (1935–51). Among his compositions are Concertino on Lezione III of Ariosto for Cello and Strings (1917); Impressions from a Greek Tragedy for Orch. (San Francisco, Feb. 27, 1921); I Am the Reaper, chorus for Men’s Voices (1921).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire