Léon Eugene Barzin (November 27, 1900 – April 29, 1999)[1] was a Belgian-born American conductor and founder of the National Orchestral Association (NOA),[2] the oldest surviving training orchestra in the United States.
He studied the violin with his father (principal viola at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels and later of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra), and later with Édouard Deru, Pierre Henrotte and Eugène Ysaÿe.
In 1973 he took the NOA to Italy, where it was orchestra in residence at the Spoleto Festival Di Due Mondi, participating in Luchino Visconti's legendary production of Giacomo Puccini's Manon Lescaut.
[citation needed] The great cellist Emanuel Feuermann considered Barzin to be one of the finest conductors of the twentieth century and indeed he was a most appreciated collaborator of the foremost soloists of the day.
His years with the NOA were notable for the dazzling array of artists who appeared under his direction: Artur Schnabel, Claudio Arrau, Bronisław Huberman, Nathan Milstein, Ernst von Dohnányi, Emanuel Feuermann, William Primrose, Lillian Kallir, Joseph Szigeti, Felix Salmond, Myra Hess, Rudolf Serkin, Yehudi Menuhin, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Lili Kraus, Mischa Elman, Elisabeth Schumann, Joseph Fuchs, Lillian Fuchs, Philippe Entremont, Leonard Rose, Zino Francescatti, Oscar Shumsky, William Kapell, Michael Rabin, David Nadien, Jacques Voois and Rosalyn Tureck.
[citation needed] A great master of the baton, Barzin was a much sought after teacher of conducting in New York and later in France - at his home in the rue Monceau, Paris and at the Pavilion d'Artois, Vaux-sur-Seine - and in Fribourg, Switzerland.