Early Life and Career
Kunzel was born to German-American immigrant parents in New York City. At Greenwich High School in Connecticut, he arranged music and played the piano, string bass, and timpani. Initially a chemistry major, Kunzel graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in music, then studied at Harvard and Brown universities. He conducted the Brown University Glee Club for at least two years. Early in his career, he conducted for the Santa Fe Opera and studied at the Pierre Monteux School. He met his Austrian-born wife, Brunhilde, while conducting Gianni Schicchi for Santa Fe in 1964, and they married a year later. From 1960 to 1965, he conducted the Rhode Island Philharmonic. From 1965 to 1977, Kunzel served as resident conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO).
In 1969, he was initiated as an honorary member of the Eta-Omicron chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. He was also a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.
Read more about this topic: Erich Kunzel
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“I looked at my daughters, and my boyhood picture, and appreciated the gift of parenthood, at that moment, more than any other gift I have ever been given. For what person, except one’s own children, would want so deeply and sincerely to have shared your childhood? Who else would think your insignificant and petty life so precious in the living, so rich in its expressiveness, that it would be worth partaking of what you were, to understand what you are?”
—Gerald Early (20th century)
“After all, life hasn’t much to offer except youth and I suppose for older people the love of youth in others.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)