Ellie Ney is a German pianist and music teacher. She was born on September 27, 1882 in Dusseldorf, and died on March 31, 1968 in Tutzing. She taught and toured a lot, preferring Beethoven's works. Ellie has lived in Europe and the USA throughout her life.
Biography and Education
The pianist's career developed in Bonn. At the beginning of Ellie Ney's music classes, her teacher was Leonhard Wolf, a famous German violinist and composer, musicologist and talented teacher. Ellie followed in the footsteps of her first musical director, graduating from the Cologne Conservatory. Here she was lucky to learn from the famous professor of Jewish descent Isidor Seiss, as well as from the renowned composer and conductor Franz Wülner, in whose honor one of the Munich streets is named. The Polish composer, who taught thousands of musicians, Theodore Leszitsky, contributed to the development of Ellie as a genius pianist within the walls of the Cologne Conservatory. He instilled in his students attention to sound quality, melodious melody and expressive performance.
Among the teachers of Ellie Ney is Emil von Sauer. This German-Austrian composer, pianist and teacher masterfully mastered the technique of execution, talentedly instructed many brilliant pianists and toured no less successfully, created his own music and recorded concerts of famous composers. As a student of Ney, critics and the public noted. She was awarded the Mendelssohn Music Prize. In addition, Ellie Ney is the winner of the Ibach firm, a manufacturer of pianos, pianos and organs.
Career and personal life
After graduating from the conservatory, Ellie Ney taught in Cologne and in 1907 met her future husband, violinist Willem von Hoogstraten. Willem was 2 years younger than Ellie and studied in Cologne with the Dutch violinist Bram Aldering, and then in Prague with Professor Otakar Iosifovich Shevchik. Ellie and Willem began to perform the violin and piano duet not only in Germany, but also in other European countries. Their creative union in 1911 passed into marriage. Unfortunately, it lasted only 16 years, and in 1927 the couple broke up. Ellie's husband began conducting in 1914, and when the Neu-Hoogstraten family moved to the USA in the 1920s, he performed there as a second conductor in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1925, Willem moved to the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, where he was the chief conductor.
Ellie also performed in the United States mainly with the works of Beethoven and Brahms. In 1930, she decided to leave the states and return to her native Europe. During her stay in the USA, the pianist received worldwide fame and recognition. In 1931, Ellie Ney was the main initiator of the annual Beethoven Days festival. This event received a great response and lasted until 1944, and later grew into a modern Beethoven festival. But before this, Her brainchild underwent many changes. For example, from 1944 to 1947, the festival was held twice a year, and from 1974, on the contrary, only once every 3 years. In 1993, the Bonn administration completely abandoned this musical event. But since 1999, the festival has regained its permanent foundation thanks to the public organization Citizens for Beethoven, the new city administration, the Social Democrats and the Greens. Today it is an annual festival of academic music, taking place 4 weeks from late August to early October. The organizers and sponsors of the festival are the Bonn administration, the Deutsche Welle radio, the Beethoven City Orchestra, the Bonn Opera and the Beethoven House Museum.
