Miscelanea Cultural

János Starker 

(Hebrew: יאנוש סטארקר‎), (Hungarian: Starker János)

 July 5, 1924 – April 28, 2013, was a Hungarian-American cellist. From 1958 until his death, he taught at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he held the title of Distinguished Professor.

Starker was born in Budapest to a father of Polish descent and a mother who had immigrated from Ukraine, both Jewish. His two older brothers were violinists, and the young János (named for the hospital in which he was born) was given a cello before his sixth birthday. A child prodigy, Starker made his first public performances at ages six and seven. He entered the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest to study with Adolf Schiffer and made his debut there at age 11. Starker began teaching other children at age eight, and by the time he was 12, he had five pupils. Starker counts among his strongest influences Leo Weiner, a composer who taught chamber music. Zoltán Kodály, Béla Bartók and Ernő Dohnányi were also members of the Liszt Academy faculty.

Starker made his professional debut at age 14, playing the Dvořák concerto with three hours' notice when the originally scheduled soloist was unable to play. He left the Liszt Academy in 1939 and spent most of the war in Budapest. Because of his youth, Starker escaped the tragic fate of his older brothers, who were pressed into forced labor and eventually murdered by the Nazis. Starker nevertheless spent three months in a Nazi internment camp.


In 1952, Starker became principal cellist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra when Fritz Reiner became the music director. In 1958, Starker moved to Bloomington, Indiana, where he settled for the rest of his life. At the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music he became a professor and resumed his solo career, giving hundreds of concerts on every continent.

Since 2001, Starker had limited his activities to teaching, master classes and occasional performances with his longtime partner, the pianist Shigeo Neriki, and his son-in-law, daughter and granddaughter, violinists William, Gwen, and Alexandra Preucil. In his late years, he still actively taught and viewed teaching as his responsibility to the next generation of cellists.

 Former students of Starker's include Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi; Maria Kliegel; Paul Katz; Gary Hoffman; Kathy Kee (formerly of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra); Laurien Laufman (Former cello professor at the University of Illinois); Chih-Hui Chang, Felix Fan; David Shamban; Anthony Elliott; Jeremy Shih,; Jules Eskin (principal cellist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra),; Nella Hunkins (Principal Cellist of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra); Sebastian Toettcher (Hollywood motion picture A-List); Damián Martinez,; Pamela Smits; Elizabeth Simkin (Professor of Cello at Ithaca College Conservatory); Emilio Colón (cello professor at Indiana University), Dennis Parker (a cellist virtuoso and pedagogue, who has recorded all Popper Etudes on DVD entitled The Popper Manifesto ); Mark (Principal Cellist of the Cleveland Orchestra) and Paula Kosower;

 Regina Mushabac ( also a former Starker teaching assistant); David Premo ( the associate Principal Cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra); Marc Coppey; Alan Harris (Professor of cello at the Eastman School of Music); Rafael Figueroa (the Principal Cellist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra); Susan Seligman (the Principal Cellist of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic); Joyce Geeting (soloist and teacher of young pupils at California Lutheran University in Southern California); 

Lubomir Georgiev (principal cello of the Sacramento Symphony and later professor of cello at Florida State University); Hamilton Cheifetz (Professor of Music at Portland State University and founding member of the Florestan Trio); Marc Johnson (cellist of the Vermeer Quartet); Mihaly Virizlay (late Principal Cellist Emeritus of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra); Jakob Ludwig (Second Principal Cellist of La Scala Theatre in Milan) and Robert K. Dodson, member of the Vaghy String Quartet and leader of music academia (Royal Conservatory of Music, Lawrence University, Oberlin College, New England Conservatory, Southern Methodest University, and Boston University).