Lukas Foss was born on August 15, 1922, and he passed away on February 1, 2009. He was a German-American composer, pianist, and conductor.
Career
Lukas Foss was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1922. He was recognized as a very talented child early in life. At age six, he began piano and music theory lessons with Julius Goldstein in Berlin. His parents were Hilde (Schindler) and Martin Foss, a philosopher and scholar. In 1933, when Adolf Hitler became leader of Germany, the Jewish family moved to Paris, France. There, Lukas studied piano with Lazare Lévy, composition with Noël Gallon, orchestration with Felix Wolfes, and flute with Marcel Moyse. In 1937, he moved with his parents and brother to the United States. His father, with help from Quakers who welcomed the family in Philadelphia, changed the family name to Foss. He studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia with teachers Isabelle Vengerova (piano), Rosario Scalero (composition), and Fritz Reiner (conducting).
At Curtis, Foss formed a lifelong friendship with classmate Leonard Bernstein, who later called Foss an "authentic genius." In 1961, Bernstein conducted the first performance of Foss's work, Time Cycle, while Foss conducted the first performance of Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.
Foss also studied with Serge Koussevitzky during summers from 1939 to 1943 at the Berkshire Music Center, now called the Tanglewood Music Center. From 1939 to 1940, he studied composition with Paul Hindemith at Yale University as a special student. He became an American citizen in 1942.
In 1953, Foss was appointed professor of music at UCLA, replacing Arnold Schoenberg. At UCLA, he started the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble, which performed in Boston in 1962 for the Peabody Mason Concert series. In 1963, while at the State University of New York at Buffalo, he founded the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts.
From 1961 to 1987, Foss served as music director of the Ojai Music Festival for six years. From 1963 to 1970, he was music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1971 to 1988, he was music director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic (formerly Brooklyn Philharmonia) and also directed the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra from 1972 to 1976. From 1981 to 1986, he conducted the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Beginning in 1991, he taught music, theory, and composition at Boston University. In 1994, he conducted a concert at the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts in Central Park. His students include Lauren Bernofsky, Faye-Ellen Silverman, Ivana Themmen, Claire Polin, and Rocco Di Pietro.
Foss is part of the "Boston school" of composers, which includes Arthur Berger, Irving Fine, Alexei Haieff, Harold Shapero, and Claudio Spies. He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international music fraternity. In 2000, he received a Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Personal life
In 1951, Foss married Cornelia Brendel. She was an artist and painter born in Berlin in 1931. Her parents were Otto Brendel, an art historian, and Maria Weigert Brendel. They had two children: Christopher Brendel Foss, who became a documentary filmmaker and a business advisor focused on social and environmental issues, and Eliza Foss Topol, an actress. From 1968 to 1972, Foss and his wife were separated for nearly five years. During this time, Cornelia had a relationship with pianist Glenn Gould and moved to Toronto with their two children. She later described this situation as "a perfect triangle." In his final years, Foss had Parkinson's disease. He died at his home in Manhattan on February 1, 2009, at the age of 86, due to a heart attack.