In Wednesday’s (4/28) New York Times, Margalit Fox writes, “Arthur Winograd, the founding cellist of the Juilliard String Quartet and later the longtime music director of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, died in Morristown, N.J., on Thursday, his 90th birthday. Mr. Winograd, of Lincoln Park, N.J., died from complications of pneumonia, his son Peter said. Founded in 1946, the Juilliard Quartet is widely considered the first American string quartet to attain major international status. Besides Mr. Winograd, its original members were the violinists Robert Mann and Robert Koff and the violist Raphael Hillyer. The group made its formal debut at Town Hall in New York in December 1947 and quickly became renowned for performing the work of 20th-century composers like Bartok, Berg and Walter Piston. Mr. Winograd left the quartet in 1955 to pursue conducting. In 1964 he became the Hartford Symphony’s music director, a post he held until 1985. Under his leadership, the orchestra became known for more ambitious programming—including works by Wagner, Bartok and Berlioz—and assumed a higher public profile, including regular appearances in New York at Carnegie Hall. … Before taking the podium in Hartford, Mr. Winograd was the music director of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Alabama.”
Posted April 28, 2010
