Edna Michell is an Israeli-American violinist, pedagogue, and founder and director of music festivals, institutes, and concert series, known for her versatility and her efforts to expand the violin and chamber music repertoire.
Early career
Michell was born in Tel Aviv, and began violin studies at the age of four with Moshe Hopenko, a pupil of Leopold Auer. She continued her studies at the Rubin Academy in Tel Aviv with Alice and Lorand Fenyves and Ödön Pártos, who were students of Jenő Hubay. At a very young age, she was awarded the Yehudi Menuhin special scholarship to continue her studies in London with Menuhin and Max Rostal (a disciple of Carl Flesch). In London, she was reportedly the youngest graduate ever of the Guildhall School of Music, and won the Academy Prize for Chamber Music. Michell later studied with Ivan Galamian in the United States, and worked with Zino Francescatti and Henryk Szeryng. Michell's integration of the Auer, Hubay, Flesch, and Galamian schools of violin methods became a decisive influence in her life of performance and teaching.
In her teens, Michell began touring internationally, performing in recitals and with orchestras in Great Britain, Europe and Central and South America. Following Michell's London debut at Wigmore Hall, Menuhin presented her with a Vincenzo Rugeri violin. Claudio Arrau, upon hearing her, wrote that "She is a splendid musician and has the approach of a serious dedicated artist. Hers is a natural gift for the instrument..." Arrau's efforts enabled Michell to make her New York debut at Town Hall. Michell has performed as a duo with harpsichordist Fernando Valenti and with classical guitarist Rey de la Torré.
Adirondack–Champlain Festival
Michell was artistic director of the Adirondack–Champlain Festival. The festival began as a weekend of concerts and expanded into a summer-long lineup of events and programs throughout the region. Festival performers included Michael Rabin, Julius Katchen, Gary Graffman, Claude Frank, János Starker, Aldo Parisot, Ivan Moravec, and Valenti. String quartets that performed included the Amadeus, Guarneri, Hungarian, and Emerson, and other groups that performed included the Cantilena Chamber Players/Cantilena Piano Quartet, and the Beaux Arts Trio. Other performing artists included the dancers Melissa Hayden, Patricia McBride, Jacques D' Amboise and Edward Villella, and folk singers Odetta and Pete Seeger.
The Festival included an Institute of Advanced Musical Studies with Michell, Starker, Parisot, Roman Totenberg, György Sebők and Walter Trampler, and Symposia on Music Criticism and New Music led by Virgil Thomson, George Crumb, Lukas Foss, and Alfred Frankenstein, among others. Of the symposia, Frankenstein wrote in Musical America that "both programs bore the same rubric: the contemporary musical experience. They may not have defined all the contemporary musical experience, but what they did define was so beautiful and so magnificently brought of that one wished for nothing else. Modern music was superlatively well served." In Newsweek, Hubert Saal described the festival as "informal but highly sophisticated".
Cantilena Chamber Players/Cantilena Piano Quartet
Michell was the founder and guiding spirit of the Cantilena Chamber Players/Cantilena Piano Quartet, an ensemble known for performing well-known masterworks, premiering new compositions, and reviving forgotten or lesser-known masterworks from the 19th century re-discovered by Michell. She inspired over twenty composers to write new compositions for the ensemble. The Cantilena Chamber Players/ Cantilena Piano Quartet has performed around the world, including the Helena Rubinstein Concerts, a series founded by Michell. Cantilena, with Menuhin, was invited to perform a special concert at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics.
Reception
Michell has received outstanding reviews throughout her career. Music and Musicians described her as "a violinist of rare gifts", and the Montreal Star wrote that "her thrilling tone has a vibrancy which sends chills down one's back and she is in possession of a technique which is quite stunning in its virtuosity." The Strad wrote that "Michell, in particular, has the same ability to soar rasphodically above the bar lines that made Menuhin's own violin playing so eloquent and memorable." Of a performance in Mexico, Novadades wrote that "[She] captivated the audience. Edna Michell's violin sings, translating deep sorrow and great happiness."