Igor Kipnis

Igor Kipnis (September 27, 1930 – January 23, 2002) was a German-born American harpsichordist, pianist and conductor.

The son of Metropolitan Opera bass Alexander Kipnis, he was born in Berlin, where his father was singing with the Berlin State Opera. Although Jewish, the elder Kipnis was popular in Germany during Nazism's rise to prominence. Employing the stratagem of a vocal injury, the elder Kipnis fled Germany for Austria. When the Nazis annexed that country, the family was touring Australia. From there they moved to the US in 1938. He learned the piano with his maternal grandfather, Heniot Levy; attended the Westport School of Music, and received his B.A. from Harvard University, where he served as the program director of WHRB, Harvard's undergraduate radio station. He studied harpsichord with Fernando Valenti, and made his concert debut in New York in 1959. He was an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa (Harvard, 1977), and in 1993 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by Illinois Wesleyan University.

In 1969, he performed with the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, in the Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park, in the summer series.

Kipnis lived in Redding, Connecticut. For five years he was president and artistic director of the Friends of Music of Fairfield County, the Connecticut chamber music series, in addition to having served thirteen years as co-artistic director of the Connecticut Early Music Festival. Dr. Kipnis was also a member of the faculty of Fairfield University in the early 1970s, teaching between tours.

He married Judith Robison on January 6, 1953. Their son, Jeremy R. Kipnis, became a film and record producer. Igor and Judith Kipnis divorced in May 1996, but reconciled shortly before her death on March 1, 2001.

He died in his home in Redding, Connecticut, of renal cancer. His last concert was a solo piano recital in October 2001, in San Francisco.

Following his debut in 1959, harpsichordist, fortepianist, duo-pianist, and clavichordist Kipnis performed in recital and as soloist with orchestras throughout the world, including North, Central, and South America, Western and Eastern Europe, Israel, and Australia.

Igor Kipnis performed as harpsichord soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Louisville, Dallas, Denver, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Seattle, Vancouver, Honolulu, and National Symphonies, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Capella Cracoviensis, the Boston Pops, the Munich Philharmonic, the New Amsterdam Sinfonietta, the Los Angeles, St. Paul, Cologne, Israel, New Stockholm, McGill, and Polish Chamber Orchestras, the New York Chamber Symphony, the Smithsonian Chamber Players, the Sinfonia of Sydney, and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. His appearances at international and domestic festivals included Bachwoche Ansbach, the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, and Ludwigsburg in Germany, the Bath Festival in Great Britain, Gulbenkian in Portugal, Lanaudière in Canada, the Israel Festival, the Melbourne International Festival of Organ and Harpsichord, the Madeira Bach Festival, Poland's Music in Old Crakow, the Indianapolis Early Music Festival, and Prague Spring International Music Festival. In 1969, he was a soloist with the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, in the Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park, in the summer series.