16 Facts About Leo Kestenberg

Leo Kestenberg was a German-Israeli classical pianist, music educator, and cultural politician.

Leo Kestenberg fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and later moved to Mandatory Palestine, where he founded a seminary for music teachers and privately taught pianists such as Menahem Pressler and Alexis Weissenberg.

Leo Kestenberg joined the military band in Josefstadt the same year and began his concert career in Reichenberg as soloist in Liszt's First Piano Concerto.

Leo Kestenberg became musical adviser to the Volksbuhne Berlin, and a piano teacher at both the Stern Conservatory and the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory.

Leo Kestenberg began serving on the educational committee of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany, which he had joined in 1900, publishing in the Sozialistische Monatshefte.

In January 1906, Leo Kestenberg gave his first piano recital in Berlin and became a sought-after and celebrated Liszt interpreter.

Leo Kestenberg began his professional career as a concert pianist, which led to professorship in piano at the Musikhochschule Berlin from 1921 to 1929.

Leo Kestenberg continued his cultural-political commitment, organising numerous artistic events within the framework of the USPD's workers' associations and trade unions in the Freie Volksbuhne Berlin and the Workers' Singers' Association, in an effort to democratising the arts.

Leo Kestenberg was involved in the popular education project of the Kroll Opera from 1927 to 1930, in Paul Cassirer's art magazine Der Bildermann in 1916, and supported the Commission for Exemplary Workers' Furniture in 1912.

In 1918, Leo Kestenberg joined the Prussian Ministry of Culture as a research assistant, was appointed advisor to the art department in 1920 and headed the music department of the Zentralinstitut fur Erziehung und Unterricht.

However, only a few days after his 50th birthday, Leo Kestenberg was dismissed from all positions for political reasons on 1 December 1932.

Immediately after the seizure of power by the Nazis, Leo Kestenberg first emigrated to Prague in 1933, where he was able to reactivate his Czechoslovak citizenship.

Leo Kestenberg soon established contacts with the foreign minister Kamil Krofta and with German emigre circles and the Prague born Max Brod.

Leo Kestenberg found himself caught between the fronts of the rather nationalistic Czech musical education in contrast to the simultaneously existing tendency of an increasing international opening.

Leo Kestenberg was involved in the "", which was affiliated to the Verband deutscher Lehreremigranten.

Leo Kestenberg died in Tel Aviv at age 79 following a bout of angina pectoris.