[1] He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, the third son of wealthy, intellectual Jewish parents, his father Isaiah Kagen, a newspaperman, and his mother Vera Lipshitz, a writer and educator.
[3] But in 1920 his family fled the Revolution, moving to Berlin, and a year later he studied with Leonid Kreutzer and Paul Juon at the Hochschule für Musik.
[4] He and his family moved again, to the United States in 1925, and in 1930 he entered the Juilliard School in New York City, studying piano with Carl Friedberg, composition with Rubin Goldmark and singing with Marcella Sembrich, and earned his diploma in 1934.
[1] He became influential and important to the field of singing and voice pedagogy through his own teaching, as well as his writings and editions of a wide variety of vocal works.
[5] As a pianist, he specialized in accompanying singers, especially important artists such as Povla Frijsh, Ezio Pinza and Mack Harrell.