Felix Khuner was the second violinist of the Kolisch Quartet.
14 Facts About Felix Khuner
1.
2.
Felix Khuner joined the quartet, then the Wien Quartet, in 1926 when the quartet needed a new second violinist.
3.
When Kolisch answered yes, Felix Khuner agreed to join the quartet.
4.
Felix Khuner was once said to have echoed Kolisch's remarks about Stravinsky's compositions as "music about music".
5.
Felix Khuner fled Vienna, Austria in 1938 and settled in Northern California where he joined the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, where he would stay for 41 years.
6.
Felix Khuner met his future wife, Gertrude, in New York, and they wed in California in 1942.
7.
Months before he was too old for the draft, Felix Khuner was drafted into the US Army.
8.
Felix Khuner served first as a musician, and was later sent to New Guinea.
9.
Felix Khuner retired from the San Francisco Opera, which did not have a mandatory retirement age, a few years later.
10.
Felix Khuner was concert master of the Monterey Symphony in the late 1960s and early 1970s until retiring from performing in 1983.
11.
Felix Khuner always had private violin students, giving lessons in his home in the Berkeley hills.
12.
Felix Khuner performed regularly with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra conducted by Edgar Braun.
13.
Felix Khuner gave his last violin lesson only a few days before he died of lung cancer in June, 1991.
14.
Felix Khuner was survived by his wife of 49 years, Gertrude Khuner, four children, and four grandchildren.