Sándor, György
Sándor, György
Sándor, György , admired Hungarian-born American pianist and teacher, cousin of Arpád Sándor; b. Budapest, Sept. 21, 1912. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest with Bartók (piano) and Kodály (composition). After making his debut in Budapest (1930), he toured in Europe before settling in the U.S. (1939); became a naturalized American citizen (1943). After World War II, he played in major music centers of the world. He also taught at Southern Methodist Univ. in Dallas (1956–61); then was director of graduate studies in piano at the Univ. of Mich, in Ann Arbor (1961–81); subsequently taught at the Juilliard School in N.Y. (from 1982). He won particular distinction as an interpreter of the music of Bartók, Kodály, and Prokofiev; was soloist in the premiere of Bartók’s third Piano Concerto (Philadelphia, Feb. 8, 1946). He made brilliant transcriptions of Dukas’s L’Apprenti sorcier and Shostakovich’s Danse russe. He publ. On Piano Playing: Motion, Sound, and Expression (N.Y., 1981).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire