Louise Nathanson papers

Louise Nathanson (née Meiszner) was born on 24 August 1924, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her mother, Lujza Eberhardt, was a concert pianist, and her father, John Meiszner, was a flautist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Both were born in Hungary and educated in music at the Royal Academy in Budapest. The couple immigrated to the United States in July 1921.

Nathanson began playing the piano at age three, under her mother’s direction. She gave her first public piano recital in St. Louis at the age of five. Because no American music academies would take a student so young, Nathanson and her parents moved to Hungary in 1930, where she attended the prestigious Franz Liszt Academy of Music for eight years. When Nathanson was thirteen, she was invited by the famous Austrian composer Erich Kleiber to perform as a soloist with his orchestra. Her performance was reported in newspapers all over Europe and the United States.

Nathanson moved back to the United States in 1938 and made her U.S. debut with the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra. She attended the Juilliard School of Music and went on her first nationwide concert tour at the age of fifteen. She graduated from Julliard in May 1945. In the same year, at the age of twenty, Nathanson received the prestigious Leventritt Award for pianists. She also performed with Phil Spitalny and His All Girl Orchestra (later known as the Hour of Charm All Girl Orchestra) and the Charmers Trio. During her career, Nathanson performed as a soloist with most of the major symphony orchestras in the U.S. and Europe, including the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

She met Martin Jay Nathanson, a businessman from Rock Island, Illinois, backstage at one of her concerts in November 1958. They married in Rock Island 19 January 1959. The couple had one child, Kevin, born in 1960, at which point Nathanson retired from her solo career to become a wife and mother. After her son took up the flute in the early 1970s, Nathanson began playing piano again to accompany him. She also frequently accompanied visiting musicians playing in the Quad Cities. Nathanson began to teach part-time at Augustana College and Rivermont Collegiate High School in the 1980s, giving private lessons for more than twenty years. She also acted as an accompanist for faculty and student recitals and for the Quad City Arts Visiting Artist Series.

Louise Nathanson died 30 June 2008, in Rock Island at the age of 83.