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Silvia Kind Silvia Kind was born in Chur (Grisons, Switzerland) on August 15th, 1907 as the third child to Gottfried Kind and Ida Maria Hedwig Kind-Aldinger after brother Ernst and sister Doris. At the Zurich Conservatory, she studied, along with high school, piano, flute, Kontrapunkt, composition, rhythmic gymnastic, choral- and orchestra conducting. Among her teachers were Joseph Ebner, Volkmar Andreae and Hermann Dubs. She graduated in piano and Kontrapunkt. At the Musikhochschule Berlin, she continued her studies with Professor Paul Hindemith, Edwin Fischer and E. Harich-Schneider. At the same time, she conducted the choir of the Freie Universität Berlin. During the Nazi regime, she remained in exile in Zurich where she became the assistant and scholar of Hermann Scherchen. Teaching at the Volkshochschule, conducting, reciting and editing in various musical periodicals and newspapers, she was very active. After World War II, she was appointed Professor at the Hochschule for music Berlin where she lectured and was teaching a harpsichord and chamber music class. Besides that, she was teaching at the Collegium musicum and the Technische Universität. In 1964, she started her first concert tour through the United States and Canada. It was in 1969 that she was offered a professorship at the University of Washington in Seattle (Washington). Aged 64, she was honoured with the Swiss federal award “Pro Arte”. Besides an active career in concert halls, she recorded in various formations an impressing collection of concerts at Deutsche Gramophon, Jecklin, Vox, Nonesuch, University of Washington Press and with Arthur Grossman at the Musical Heritage Society, University of Washington Press and Crystal. She got listed in Riemann’s Musiklexikon and the “Who is who of American Musicians”. After her retirement, the University of Washington honoured her with the status of an “emeritus professor”, a faculty member for her life time. In 1979, she designed and constructed her own house in Liguria, Italy, which became quite famous. She dedicated her home to the great philosopher and scientist Michael Polanyi: „Casa Misi“, the hungarian nick name for Michael. Until 1994, she was residing in Tovo di Faraldi, Italy, however spent each and every summer in her trailer “Pablo” on the Olympic Peninsula at Whiskey Creek, occasionally lecturing and giving recitals in Seattle. At the tender age of 87, she permanently moved to Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington, where she enjoyed the company of numerous former students, friends and visitors from the world over. On her 90th birthday, together with her friend and neighbour Bob, she escaped to Ulan Bator in Mongolia for avoiding the “embarrassment” of congratulating friends. On May 30th, 2002, she passed away at the age of 94 after a stroke, having played the piano and the harpsichord the day before. Her expertise in baroque ornamentation as well as her promoting of Bach with hundreds of students and thousands in her audiences will leave an impressing memory of an outstanding teacher and musician.
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