Veteran Curtis Institute Piano Professor Eleanor Sokoloff Has Died - Aged 106

American pianist and long serving Curtis Institute of Music pedagogue Eleanor Sokoloff has passed away - aged 106

American pianist and long serving Curtis Institute of Music pedagogue Eleanor Sokoloff has passed away - aged 106.

A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Ruth Edwards and David Saperton, Ms Sokoloff served on the piano teaching faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music since 1936 - making her the longest serving Professor in Curtis' history.

Her famed students have included: Hugh Sung, Lambert Orkis, Susan Starr, Claire Huangci, Kit Armstrong, Craig Sheppard, Leon McCawley, Keith Jarrett and Sean Kennard.

"Mrs Sokoloff gave herself fully to her students, to Curtis, and to music ... Curtis is forever indebted to her and extends our deepest condolences to her daughters and to all of her family, friends, and students," a spokesperson for the Curtis Institute of Music has today said.

“She was an institution within the institution ... she just experienced it all, she knew it all, she remembered it all ... it’s a huge, huge loss for all of us — our one contact to the very beginning of the school,” Curtis Institute President Roberto Díaz has today told the Philadelphia Inquirer.