Ruth Laredo
In 1960, Meckler moved to New York City and married the Bolivian-born violinist Jaime Laredo, who was three-and-a half-years younger.
Their union produced a daughter in 1969, Jennifer, who is married to Paul Watkins, chief conductor and music director of the English Chamber Orchestra.
[1]: 60 This project, said Laredo, saved her life,[2]: 474 and with the Rachmaninoff recordings, made from 1974 to 1979 (the latest album released in 1981), her solo career gathered momentum.
Laredo was known for wearing striking gowns (most of them made by Lincoln Center's costume designer Catherine Heiser) on stage, which were frequently shown in fashion magazines.
She was often seen riding her bicycle or jogging while listening to the music of Phil Collins or the rock group Genesis around Manhattan's Upper West Side, where she lived.
In a lecture in the Concerts with Commentary series about Felix Mendelssohn, she discussed the significance and depth of the composer's Jewish background.
Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy's decision to convert to Protestantism, said Laredo, was a practical means to ensure his son's acceptance into the music profession in Germany.
[5] Laredo died in her sleep at home on May 25, 2005, of ovarian cancer, a diagnosis made four years earlier, but which did not stop her from giving concerts.
On May 18, 2006, her daughter Jennifer organized a memorial concert in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
The participants were the Guarneri Quartet (with Paul Watkins, Jennifer's husband), Courtenay Budd, Nicolas Kendall, Pei Yao Wang, Edmund Battersby, James Tocco, Susan Wadsworth, director of the Young Concert Artists, and the flutist Paula Robison.
Courtenay Budd sang Ruth Laredo's favourite song, Franz Schubert's An die Musik, the title of which Jennifer had chosen for the inscription on her mother's gravestone.
In 2007, the Ruth Laredo Memorial Prize of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions was endowed with contributions from her family and friends and admirers.
[2]: 471 Rudolf Serkin, a student of Arnold Schoenberg and himself an artist of worldwide reputation, was known for his complete dedication to the music, and his fidelity to the composer.
Fellow students included Murray Perahia, Richard Goode (currently artistic director of the festival, together with Mitsuko Uchida), Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma.
“We had no idea she was ill,” competition director and pianist Alexander Braginsky told the Minneapolis Star Tribune after Laredo's death.
“She was so feisty and opinionated, a powerful personality.”[6] Ruth Laredo appeared on stage as a little girl in the Music Club of Metropolitan Detroit.
At the same time she tried to establish herself as a soloist and in 1962 she made her orchestral debut in Carnegie Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski.
She was a founding member of the Music from Marlboro Concerts and in 1965 participated in their first tour, which included a visit to Israel where she played Johann Sebastian Bach's Concerto for three pianos in D minor with Rudolf and Peter Serkin.
Her solo career had a major boost in 1974, when she gave her debut in Avery Fisher Hall at New York's Lincoln Center.
Her performance of Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Pierre Boulez, was met with enthusiastic critical acclaim.
[9] In 1981 she made her solo recital debut in Carnegie Hall with a program entitled “Homage to Rachmaninoff”, which included works by Chopin, Beethoven and Scriabin.
The concert, hosted by Van Cliburn, featured 27 famed pianists, including Alfred Brendel, Shura Cherkassky, Murray Perahia, Rudolf Serkin and Alexis Weissenberg.
In the 1988/1989 season she began her series “Concerts with Commentary” (first called “Speaking of Music”) in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The series included works from Brahms, Chopin, Dvořák, Fauré, Franck, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Clara and Robert Schumann, Scriabin and Tchaikovsky, which she discussed before the performances with great engagement.
It is in that spirit that I play tonight.”[11] The program was similar to that of her debut in 1976 and included works by Robert Schumann, Beethoven, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff and Ravel, with Chopin's Waltz Op.
[12] In September 2004 Laredo was invited by the Russian ministry of culture to participate in the International Festival of the Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg State Conservatory.
[3]: 277 In the 1983/1984 season she played the world premiere of Peter Martins's work called Waltzes with the New York City Ballet.
[14] Her repertoire included also works by Franz Liszt, Arnold Schoenberg, Béla Bartók, Anton Webern and Alban Berg.
In 1994 Laredo played with jazz pianist Marian McPartland and from 1996 with her and Dick Hyman in programs entitled Three Piano Crossover.
[17] Ruth Laredo also recorded more than 20 albums featuring works of other composers, among them Isaac Albéniz, Bach, Beethoven, Lili Boulanger, Brahms, Chopin, Falla, Debussy, Khachaturian, Fauré, Mozart, Poulenc, Ravel, Clara and Robert Schumann, Tchaikovsky as well as of the American composers Barber, Aaron Copland, Ives, Laderman, Kirchner, Rorem and Siegmeister.
