Eugene List

Louis Lisnitzer had immigrated to America from Odessa, Ukraine and settled in Philadelphia, where he met and married Rose, whose family had also come from the same region.

At the age of sixteen, Eugene List's official concert career began in December 1934 at Philadelphia's Academy of Music.

List's performance as the young American who met Stokowski's challenge established him as a star, a status that would stay with him the rest of his fifty-year career.

In December 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, List enlisted in the Army without waiting for his formal call-up, asking only that he be allowed to finish the season, since he was committed to several concert dates.

In March 1942, the Army assigned List, aged 26, to the New York Port of Embarkation, Brooklyn, where he was given an office job as a typist.

He was sent to the Paris suburb of Chatou, where he joined a collection of GI talent, including Mickey Rooney, violinist Stuart Canin, modern dancer José Limón, Bobby Breen and Josh Logan.

Soon they learned the occasion was to play for President Harry S. Truman, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill, including their large entourage at the Big Three conference.

Both husband and wife would teach in Rochester until 1975 before they returned to New York, where Glenn taught violin at Queens College and the Manhattan School of Music.

List joined the faculty at NYU as a part-time teacher, and for two years—1983–85—traveled by plane twice a month to teach at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh.

Like his former teacher Olga Samaroff, List guided his students to form their own sound and interpretation as long as it was valid to the score and intent of the composer.

List's great interest in Louis Moreau Gottschalk's music led to his recreation of the composer's Monster Concerts, where he featured many pianos and pianists playing together on stage.

Only two years later, on March 1, 1985, while at home planning his own 50th anniversary concert in Carnegie Hall, List accidentally fell on the stairway of his New York brownstone and was killed.

During their forty-two year marriage, Eugene List and Carroll Glenn raised two daughters, Rachel and Allison, while actively pursuing their respective concert and teaching careers.