Origin
Igor Markevitch was born in Kiev, Ukraine, a part of Russian Empire, to an old family of Ukrainian Cossack starshyna ennobled in the 18th century. One of his ancestors was a Jewish merchant who converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity in the 17th century. The family eventually produced many notable individuals.
A son of the pianist Boris Markevitch and Zoia Pokitonova, Markevitch moved with his family to Paris in 1914 and Switzerland in 1916. Alfred Cortot discovered his musical ability and advised him to go to Paris in 1926 for training as a composer and pianist at the École Normale, where he studied under Cortot and Nadia Boulanger.
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Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“Art is good when it springs from necessity. This kind of origin is the guarantee of its value; there is no other.”
—Neal Cassady (19261968)
“In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)