Antoinette Szumowska

Antoinette Szumowska (February 22, 1868 — August 16, 1938), originally Antonina Szumowska, later Antoinette Szumowska-Adamowska, was a Polish pianist and piano teacher.

Cover image of Antoinette Szumowska from Freund's Musical Weekly
Antoinette Szumowska, from a 1921 publication.

Early life

Antonina Szumowska was born near Lublin. Her father, a professor, had been a political exile in Siberia. She was educated in Warsaw. After college, she studied piano at a conservatory in Warsaw, with Rudolf Strobl and Aleksander Michałowski.[1] Szumowska moved to Paris in 1890, where she used the French form of her first name ("Antoinette"), and studied with Ignacy Jan Paderewski for five years. "My lessons with Paderewski were somewhat irregular," she explained later. "We worked together whenever he came to Paris. Sometimes I did not see him for several months, and then he would be in Paris for a number of weeks; at such seasons we worked together very often."[2]

Career

Szumowska made her debut in Paris in 1891, and in London the following year. She performed on a tour of Great Britain in 1893. In 1895 she made her first trip to the United States, where she played in Boston and at Madison Square Garden in New York,[3] and at the inaugural concert in Steinway Hall in Chicago.[4] Szumowska gave special concerts[5] and wrote "An Appreciation of Chopin" for The Etude magazine, on the occasion of the Polish composer's centennial in 1910.[6] She was a member of the Adamowski Trio with her husband and his brother, Timothee Adamowski.[7][8]

During and after World War I, Szumowska was president of the New England branch of the Friends of Poland, a relief organization. She raised money and went to Warsaw in 1920[9] to coordinate distribution of food and clothing.[10] For her contributions she was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, in 1924, a decoration presented by her former teacher Paderewski.[11] In 1921 she resumed her performing career, with a concert in Boston. "Mme. Szumowska has lost none of her technical skill," an American magazine noted; "Her runs are rippling and smooth, her trill is hardly to be equalled, and her masterful playing in general was a welcome revelation to the audience."[12]

Szumowska taught at the New England Conservatory of Music. Among her students were Jesús María Sanromá[13] and Dai Buell.[14]

Personal life

Antoinette Szumowska married cellist Josef Adamowski in 1896. They had two children, Helene (Helenka) and Thaddeus (Tadeusz).[7] They lived in Massachusetts and had a summer home on Sutton Island.[15] She was widowed in 1930, and died in 1938, aged 70 years.[16]

Her daughter Helene Adamowska became an actress and humanitarian under the name Helenka Pantaleoni. Her son Tadeusz Adamowski became an athlete at Harvard University, and went on to play ice hockey for Poland in the 1928 Winter Olympics, before serving in the Polish army during World War II. Both of her children were active on behalf of UNICEF later in their lives. Actress Téa Leoni is the great-granddaughter of Antoinette Szumowska.

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References
  1. "Antoinette Szumowska" Music of Yesterday (January 15, 2014).
  2. Harriette Brower, Jeffrey Johnson, Piano Mastery: Talks with Paderewski, Hofmann, Bauer, Godowsky, Grainger, Rachmaninoff, and Others: The Harriette Brower Interviews 1915-1926 (Courier Corporation 2003): 9-10. ISBN 9780486427812
  3. "Miss Szumowska's Recital" The World (March 22, 1895): 3. via Newspapers.com
  4. "Steinway Chicago; New Steinway Hall; Inauguration" Musical Courier (May 15, 1895): 29.
  5. "Chopin Memorial" Star Tribune (February 13, 1910): 24. via Newspapers.com
  6. Antoinette Szumowska, "An Appreciation of Chopin" Archived 2017-04-10 at the Wayback Machine The Etude (August 1910).
  7. Florence Arzelia Armstrong, The History of Alpha Chi Omega Fraternity (1885-1916) (George Banta Publishing 1917): 314.
  8. "The Polish Chamber Musicians" New York Times (March 10, 1896): 4. via ProQuest
  9. "Mme. Adamowska Going to Poland" Boston Post (June 27, 1920): 48. via Newspapers.com
  10. "Mme. Szumowska Returns to Concert Stage After War Work" Musical America (January 15, 1921): 13.
  11. Paul Krzywicki, From Paderewski to Penderecki: The Polish Musician in Philadelphia (2016): 252. ISBN 9781483442679
  12. "Boston's Homage to Two Noted Pianists" Musical America (January 22, 1921): 49.
  13. Alberto Hernández, Jesús María Sanromá: An American Twentieth-Century Pianist (Scarecrow Press 2008): 141. ISBN 9781461706809
  14. "A Newcomer Among Our Pianists" Musical America (December 23, 1916): 23.
  15. "Antoinette Szumowska Leads Simple Life" Musical Courier (September 27, 1917): 48.
  16. "Mme. Adamowska, Concert Pianist" New York Times (August 19, 1938): 19. via ProQuest
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