ON THIS DAY | Violin Pedagogue Ilona Fehér Was Born in 1901

Remembered as one of the last representatives of the Central European Violin School, her famed students included Pinchas Zukerman, Shlomo Mintz, Hagai Shaham, and Shmuel Ashkenasi

A student of Jeno Hubay at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Legendary Hungarian-Israeli violin pedagogue Ilona Fehér performed all over Europe, particularly with Willem Mengelberg and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.

Feher lived in Budapest until 1942 when she and her daughter were sent to a concentration camp. They escaped in 1944 and joined Hungarian and Czechoslovak partisans until the Soviet Red Army announced liberation. Although she returned to performing, she only had engagements in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe and eventually settled in Israel in 1949 as a violin pedagogue.

A holocaust survivor, Feher was a cultural pioneer in Israel. She founded Ilona Feher Foundation as a response to the deep responsibility she felt to support the welfare of young, promising Israeli artists.

Feher was the recipient of the Golden Medal and Diploma of the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest as well as an Honorary Doctor of the Weizmann Institute of Science and Honorary Citizen of the city of Holon. She was awarded the King Solomon Award of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation in Isaac Stern's 65th birthday celebration in Carnegie Hall.