User:Gruenhilda/Dr. Frederick Neumann, musician

Guggenheim Fellowship Award Winner, violinist and author Frederick Neumann (1908 - 1994) was born in Bielitz which is now Kravkov in the Czech Republic but which then was in Austrian Silesia, a province of the Hapsburg Empire. His books include ‘Ornamentation in Baroque and Post-Baroque Music, Performance Practices of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries , and Ornamentation and Improvisation in Mozart. In addition, he wrote two texts on violin technique, one of which is, and several collections of essays.

PERSONAL LIFE
Frederick Neumann began to play the violin in his youth, and studied with prominent teachers, but later decided to pursue an academic career. He attended Prague’s Academic Gymnasium, the University of Frankfut, and the University of Berlin where he earned a doctorate in political science and economics. He came to the U.S> in 1939, where he was head of the string department of the Cornish School of Music and Arts in Seattle. From 1942-45, he served in the U.S. Army Intelligence Service where he was assigned as a counterintelligence officer. Following the war, he received a master’s and PhD from Columbia University.

CAREER
From 1948 – 51, he taught at the U. of Miami in Florida, and served as concertmaster of an orchestra in that city. In the early 50’s he was playing with the N.Y. City Opera, and by the mid-‘50s he accepted a position at the University of Richmond in Virginia, on their  music faculty. He also served as a visiting professor at Princeton, Yale, and Indiana universities. When the Richmond Symphony was formed in 1957, he was awarded the position of concertmaster, which he held until 1964.