IN MEMORIAM

Israeli violist Yizhak Schotten was born in Haifa, Israel in 1943. He began lessons on the violin initially at the age of nine, but experienced a turning point in his musical education at the age of 14.‘I heard Primrose on the radio and when I heard that viola sound, that was it,’ Schotten said in an interview with The Strad in 1998.

 

Schotten had been studying in Israel with Heinrich Jacobi, when he was presented with the opportunity to perform for William Primrose. Schotten was then offered a scholarship to attend the University of Southern California, where Primrose was teaching at the time. He also studied with Primrose at Indiana University in 1965. Schotten described studying with Primrose as rough. ’He was very nice to me but he was also very professional and I was a bit undisciplined. Mr Primrose used to throw me out of the lesson if he thought I was unprepared.’ However, he believed Primrose ’[had the] best bow arm in the business and I remember him playing his incredible spiccato.’

 

From 1966 to 1969, Schotten studied at the Manhattan School of Music with Lillian Fuchs, whom he described as ’tiny but she had so much energy; and her arm was so extended that she managed to play so well.’ During this time, he played in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) from 1967.

 

He held the position of associate principal of the Japanese Philharmonic Orchestra in Tokyo for the 1970-71 season as part of an artist exchange before returning to the BSO, after which he went to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra as principal in 1973, switching to the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra in 1976 and staying there until 1979. In Cincinnati, he was a member of the Trio d’Accordo with violinist Jorja Fleezanis and cellist Karen André; together, they won the Concert Artists’ Guild International Chamber Music Competition in New York in 1978.

 

His final orchestral role was principal viola of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, which he held from 1983 to 1985.

 

Schotten joined the University of Michigan School of Music faculty in 1985 after having taught at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and the University of Washington in Seattle from 1979 to 1983.

 

He was also on the American Federation of Musician’s Congress of Strings faculty and gave masterclasses across the US and internationally, including at the Tertis International Viola Competition, the Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem Academies of Music, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Australia, and in Taiwan for the Hsing Tien Kong Culture & Education Development Foundation.Schotten was the artistic director of the XIV International Viola Congress and has been a featured artist at six other International Congresses.

 

In 2020, Schotten received the American Viola Society (AVS) Career Achievement Award, in recognition for his distinguished contributions to viola performance and teaching.

 

His performance career as a soloist and chamber musician took his around the world, and included Seiji Ozawa, Thomas Schippers, Sergiu Comissiona, Joseph Swensen and Arthur Fiedler as collaborators. He also recorded seven discs for Crystal Records, which extensively covered viola solo and chamber repertoire, as well as viola orchestral excerpts with spoken commentary.

 

He served on faculties and performed at the Aspen Music Festival, Banff, Meadowmount, Interlochen, Tanglewood, Chamber Music Northwest, Montreal, Chautauqua, Skaneateles, Montecito, Juneau, and Fairbanks Festivals. He was also music director of the Maui Classical Music Festival in Hawaii and was director of Strings Music Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and SpringFest in Ann Arbor.