Louis Kaufman

Louis Kaufman was an American violinist and violist born in Portland, Oregon, in 1905 and who died in Los Angeles in 1994. He received his string training at the Institute of Musical Art in New York, where he studied with Henry Bettman and then with Franz Kneisel, graduating in 1926 with the Loeb Prize.

In 1927 he won the Naumburg Award, which gave him a recital in New York the following year. Between 1927 and 1933 he was a member of the Musical Art Quartet as violist, but he left the quartet to pursue a career as a solo violinist. That same year, 1933, he married the pianist Annette Leibole, with whom he performed and recorded for more than fifty years. Shortly afterwards he was signed by MGM and went on to play solos on some 400 film soundtracks.

Kaufman premiered numerous modern works, among them Anthony Collins's Violin Concerto and Leighton Lucas's Concert champêtre. His technique was impeccable, but he sought above all beauty of sound, in the line of the school of Elman, Kreisler and Heifetz. He owned two notable instruments: the 1775 Guadagnini, known as the 'ex-Zimbalist', and the 1727 Stradivari, the 'ex-Barrère'.