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Title and date in ink on recto of mount. The renowned pianist Nadia Reisenberg was born in Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania), then a part of Russia, on July 14, 1904, to Aaron and Rachel Reisenberg. Her sister Anna (Newta) was born two years later, and Clara in 1911. The three sisters remained extremely close. When Nadia was six, her Uncle Paul sent the family a piano, and Nadia immediately knew she would be at the keyboard for the rest of her life.Nadia began studying with Alexander Lambert, and made her American debut in December of 1922, playing Paderewski's "Polish Fantasy" with the City Symphony at Carnegie Hall, in the presence of the composer. According to the review in the New York Herald, "the young player showed uncommon musical insight, giving the solo an abandon and brilliance often found in a mature concert soloist," the critic adding that "among other prominent pianists who have marked her gifts are Rachmaninoff and Hofmann." Nadia later studied with Josef Hofmann, eventually becoming his teaching assistant at the Curtis Institute.Nadia Reisenberg's recital debut came in February of 1924. "She impressed her audience with the vivid quality and facility of her playing" was just one of a dozen rave reviews (that one from Musical America), and from there her career took off. In 1939, Reisenberg embarked upon the historic tour-de-force of playing all of Mozart's Piano Concertos in weekly programs that were broadcast coast-to-coast from New York station WORIn the 1940's, Nadia performed repeatedly with The New York Philharmonic under Sir John Barbirolli and Artur Rodzinski (in fact, she became the only pianist to have appeared with the Philharmonic on two separate occasions within a single season), but by the 1950's, she had given up most of her touring, and was focusing more on chamber recitals and teaching. After three years on the faculty of Curtis, she began teaching at Queens College, became a professor at the Mannes College of Music, and later taught at Juilliard. Meanwhile, her recordings were receiving great reviews, and she performed frequently with such eminent New York Philharmonic principals as the violinist Michel Piastro, cellist Joseph Schuster and clarinetist Simeon Bellison; her first (78 rpm) recording was a Brahms Sonata with Benny Goodman, and she was a frequent guest artist with the Budapest String Quartet.Nadia Reisenberg celebrated her 75th birthday playing recitals with violinist Erick Friedman, both in Carnegie Hall and at the Caramoor Festival, and the next year joined members of the Juilliard Quartet for the Mendelssohn D Minor Trio and Faure C Minor Quartet at the Library of Congress. Her final public performance, with violist Paul Doktor, was on October 3, 1981, at Carnegie Recital (now Weill) Hall. She passed away peacefully at her home, June 10, 1983, a Liszt Etude open on the piano. Charles Kaufman, then president of Mannes, phrased a fitting eulogy: "Hers was one of our century's richest and most giving lives in music."Several of her recitals were recorded in Carnegie Hall.

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