Curtis Mourns the Passing of Geoffrey Michaels (Violin '60)

The Curtis community mourns the loss of celebrated violinist and pedagogue Geoffrey Michaels (’60), who passed away at age 79 on Saturday, February 17, due to complications from Parkinson’s disease at the Samaritan Center in Voorhees, New Jersey. Born in 1944 in Perth, Australia, Mr. Michaels began taking violin lessons at age five and, at 14, became the youngest winner of the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s concerto competition, touring as a soloist and performing with quartets and orchestras throughout the country. At age 16, he was invited to attend Curtis and studied with the school’s director, Efrem Zimbalist; and virtuosic violinist, violist, and conductor, Oscar Shumsky. Soon after, he was welcomed as a member of the renowned Curtis String Quartet and later cofounded the Liebesfreud Quartet.

In a career full of many notable accomplishments, Mr. Michaels won the fourth annual Emma Feldman Competition in 1970 in Philadelphia and was a finalist in the Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition in Paris, the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, and the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, where he played Mr. Zimbalist’s composition, “Coq d’Or Fantasy.” Other highlights include performing the U.S. premiere of Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso, broadcast through the radio program Voice of America; Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa and Fratres—both presented live at Lincoln Center. Throughout his career, Mr. Michaels also made appearances at the Kennedy Center, the Academy of Music, and other prestigious venues across the globe.

Beyond the stage, Mr. Michaels served as a professor at the University of British Columbia and Florida State University while maintaining teaching affiliations with Princeton University, the New School of Music, and Swarthmore College. In 1986, he discussed the importance of participating in community outreach programs in the New York Times: “I feel that I am no use as a teacher unless I am consistently engaged in the business of actually playing. Almost everything I have to say is based on my own experience with the instrument.”

Our heartfelt sympathies and condolences go out to Mr. Michaels’s family, friends, colleagues, and former students.

To read more about Geoffrey Michaels’s life and legacy read this tribute in the Philadelphia Inquirer and at the Violin Channel.

Photo credits: 1.) Banner image of Mr. Michaels courtesy of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Mr. Michaels’s family. 2.) Courtesy of the Intelligencer Journal of Lancaster. 3.) Mr. Michaels and his Liebesfreud Quartet colleagues; courtesy of the ensemble. 4.) Image of Mr. Michaels and the Curtis String Quartet in 1968; Philadelphia Inquirer.