Continuo, a life in music

Robert Starer

In 1937, Robert Starer was enrolled in the State Academy of Music in Vienna, at thirteen one of the youngest students ever admitted. In 1938, after the German invasion of Austria, the child prodigy was expelled because he was a Jew. A few weeks later his parents wisely sent him to Palestine, where he survived for the next nine years by his musical wits, taking odd jobs accompanying singers, transcribing music, giving piano lessons and learning how to play the harp simply because the Jerusalem Symphony lacked a harpist. During the war Mr. Starer served in the British army, and in 1948 he emigrated to the United States, where he became a teacher at Juilliard and later at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Today he is a well-known composer whose work has been performed and recorded by symphony orchestras throughout the world. He has also written for the Broadway musical theater, television...

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