Szymon Pullman

Szymon Pullman was a Polish violinist, conductor, and music teacher, as well as the founder and leader of a musical ensemble and chamber orchestra. He was born in Warsaw into a Jewish family on 15 February 1890. He was also a cousin of the actress Ida Kamińska.

From 1905 to 1909 he studied with Leopold Auer at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Beginning in 1905, he appeared in concerts in Poland, Russia, and France. In 1910 he continued studying violin in Warsaw, and in 1913 he pursued further training with Martin Pierre Marsick at the Paris Conservatory.

After returning to Warsaw, Pullman founded and led a chamber orchestra devoted to Viennese classical music between 1915 and 1920. From 1921 he lived in Vienna. During the 1920s and 1930s he taught violin, viola, and chamber music at the Neues Wiener Konservatorium.

In 1930 he founded a musical ensemble known as the Pullman Ensemble, made up of 17 musicians, including four string quartets and a double bass. The group performed mainly the music of Beethoven. Under Pullman's direction, the orchestra appeared regularly in Vienna and throughout Europe until 1938.

After that he moved to Paris. Among his students were Felix Galimir and Richard Goldner. Pullman's ideas influenced the training of several generations of chamber music performers in the United States, Australia, and other countries.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Pullman was in Warsaw, where he had come to sell a house belonging to his wife. After the German invasion of Poland, he was seized by the occupiers. Imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto, he led the symphony orchestra created there, which included many well-known musicians and continued performing until 1942.

At the beginning of August 1942, Pullman was transported to the Treblinka extermination camp and was presumably killed there, like all the members of the orchestra.

Connections

This figure has 1 connection in the Music Lineage catalog.