Harmati, Sándor

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Harmati, Sándor

Harmati, Sándor, Hungarian-born American violinist, conductor, and composer; b. Budapest, July 9, 1892; d. Flemington, N.J., April 4, 1936. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest. After serving as concertmaster of the Budapest Sym. Orch., he emigrated to the U.S. in 1914 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1920. He was a violinist in the Letz (1917–21) and Lenox (1922–25) string quartets, conductor of the Omaha Sym. Orch. (1925–30) and the Musicians’ Sym. Orch. for the Unemployed in N.Y., and prof, of music at Bard Coll. in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y. (1934–36). He wrote the opera Prelude to a Melodrama (1928), incidental music to The Jeweled Tree (1926), symphonic poem Folio (1922), String Quartet (1925), solo violin pieces, and many songs, including The Bluebird of Happiness (1934), his best-known piece.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire