La Forge, Frank
La Forge, Frank
La Forge, Frank, American pianist, vocal teacher, and composer; b. Rockford, lll., Oct. 22, 1879; d. while playing the piano at a dinner given by the Musicians’ Club in N.Y, May 5, 1953. He studied piano with Leschetizky in Vienna, and toured Germany, France, Russia, and the U.S. as accompanist to Marcella Sembrich (1908–18) and to Schumann-Heink (1919). In 1920 he settled in N.Y as a voice teacher, numbering among his students Lawrence Tibbett, Marian Anderson, Lu-crezia Bori, and Richard Crooks. He wrote many effective songs, including To a Violet, Retreat, Come Unto These Yellow Sands, My Love and I, To a Messenger, I Came with a Song, Before the Crucifix, and Like a Rosebud, and piano pieces.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire