Rudolf Kolisch
Rudolf Kolisch was an Austrian-American violinist. He was born in Schottwien, Lower Austria, in Austria-Hungary, the son of the physician R. R. Kolisch.
He began studying the violin at an early age with Julius Egghard. At nine, he slightly injured a finger on his left hand and subsequently retrained to play in a mirror-image position, holding the bow in his left hand as though he were left-handed. After an interruption in his studies for military service during the First World War, he graduated from the Vienna Conservatory as a pupil of Otakar Ševčík. He also studied composition with Franz Schreker and conducting with Franz Schalk.
In 1919 Kolisch joined the circle of Arnold Schoenberg's pupils and associates, taking part in concerts of Schoenberg's Society for Private Musical Performances. His younger sister Gertrud became Schoenberg's second wife.
His experience of chamber concerts led by Schoenberg fostered Kolisch's commitment to ensemble performance and to the newest music. In 1921 he founded the New Vienna String Quartet, later known as the Kolisch Quartet. During the 1920s and 1930s, the ensemble gained an international reputation through worldwide tours and programs that combined Mozart, Schubert, and other classical composers with music by Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Béla Bartók, and other modernists.
The Kolisch Quartet later settled in Paris and sought opportunities to leave Europe permanently. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the group was touring in the United States and was unable to return. Kolisch attempted to keep the quartet together for another five years, finally disbanding it in 1944.
He then turned to teaching, initially at the New School in New York, where he and Otto Klemperer formed a university orchestra. From 1944 to 1966, he taught violin and chamber ensemble at the University of Wisconsin–Madison while also serving as first violinist of the university-based Pro Arte Quartet. From the 1950s he periodically gave chamber-music recitals in Europe and taught at the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt. In 1967 he became a professor at the New England Conservatory, remaining there until his death in Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1978.