Born: April 24, 1924 (The Bronx, NY)

Died: December 10, 1979 (Cincinnati, OH)

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Jeanne Rosenblum Kirstein, pianist, was a winner of the 1946 Walter W. Naumburg Foundation competition.

She was a contemporary music specialist. Her meeting with John Cage was crucial to the development and John Cage: Music for Keyboard 1935-1948, recorded by Kirstein. Kirstein was a professor of piano at the University of Cincinnati and Cage, in 1967-1968, was its composer in residence. She took an early interest in Cage's prepared piano music at a time when nobody was playing it. Revisiting these early scores Kirstein helped reconnect Cage with his piano works.

Rosenblum Kirstein also performed the world premiere of Gunther Schuller's Piano Concerto on October 26, 1962 with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra conducted by Max Rudolf. The work was commissioned especially for Jeanne Rosenblum Kirstein.

Jeanne Rosenblum Kirstein was the wife of Jack Kirstein an American cellist and member of the LaSalle String Quartet from 1955 to 1975.

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Excerpt from The New York Times, March 20, 1950

Jeanne Rosenblum Gives Piano Recital

"she played Franck's Prelude, Chorale and Fugue; Beethoven's Sonata, Op. 90 and his Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 129; Chopin's Ballade in G minor; six inventions by Ulysses Kay, the first performance of eight little preludes by Herbert Haufrecht and works by Liszt, Liapounow and Rameau...The young pianist played with compelling confidence, and with reason, for her technique is strong, she knows her music well and contives to give much of it a grand sweep, as in the first movement of the sonata...The pianist played the Franck with loving care, projecting the romantic ebb and flow, revealing subtleties of phrase and making the difficult fugue clear." C.H.

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