“Walter Levin, a renowned violinist and founder of the LaSalle Quartet whose struggles with dementia were chronicled by the Chicago Sun-Times in 2015 … has died at 92,” writes Maureen O’Donnell in Monday’s (8/7) Chicago Sun-Times. “Mr. Levin lived with his wife Evi Levin at Montgomery Place, a senior living community in Hyde Park, where services are being planned for September…. Mr. Levin toured the globe with the quartet and made best-selling recordings for the Deutsche Grammophon label. After the quartet disbanded in 1989—when he was 64—Mr. Levin became a respected music teacher. ‘He was, more or less, like a guru of all the young string quartets in Europe,’ said his wife…. Earlier in life, Mr. Levin and his wife divided their home life between Cincinnati, where the quartet was in residence at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music beginning in 1953, and Switzerland, where the musicians spent summers rehearsing. Evi Levin said that her husband was listening to music ‘to the last minute.’ ”
Posted August 10, 2017
