Orlando Cole (August 16, 1908 – January 25, 2010) was an American cello teacher who taught two generations of soloists, chamber musicians, and first cellists in a dozen leading orchestras, including David Cole, Lynn Harrell, Jonah Kim, Ronald Leonard, Lorne Munroe, Peter Stumpf and Marcy Rosen.
[3] Mr. Cole and the composer collaborated closely on its composition, reading a page at a time as it was written, until they gave the work its premiere in New York's Town Hall in 1933.
In the years since, several ensembles have sought to perform this original version, but Barber's longtime companion, Gian Carlo Menotti, the holder of his copyrights, forbade it.
Barber acknowledged to Cole in a letter accompanying the manuscript score sent from Rome attesting to the composer's great confidence in the slow movement.
[4] The quartet's first performance of the work in Curtis Hall is testament to the same - so rapturous was the audience's response following the adagio that the ensemble was compelled to encore it right away before continuing on to the finale.
An earlier piece, the Serenade, was also written for the Curtis String Quartet, though it fell quickly from the composer's favor and is rarely played today.
The ensemble undertook two extensive and triumphant tours of the United Kingdom and the European continent during the seasons 1936-37 and 1937–38, and were scheduled to continue the same until the outbreak of World War II.
[5] Cole helped to found the Encore School for Strings in Hudson, Ohio, along with David Cerone, who had left his position as violin teacher at Curtis to assume the directorship of the Cleveland Institute of Music.