Lee Luvisi Collection

Summary: Lee Luvisi was born on December 12, 1937, in Louisville, Kentucky. He served as a member of the major piano faculty at Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (1957-1963) and as Artist in Residence at the University of Louisville School of Music (1963-2001). Luvisi also participated in performance activities across all fifty states and in Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Europe, including a marathon of the complete solo works of Beethoven, and was an Artist Member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (circa 1983-2003).

Full History: Lee Luvisi was born on December 12, 1937, in Louisville, Kentucky. His principal studies there were with Dwight Anderson, a pupil of Isidore Philipp. At 14, he was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he became a student of Rudolf Serkin and Mieczyslaw Horszowski. Upon his graduation in 1957 he was appointed to the major piano faculty. Luvisi made his Carnegie Hall recital debut in 1957 and made his first appearance with the New York Philharmonic two years later. In 1960, he was a bronze medalist in the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium competition in Brussels. In 1959, Luvisi married Nina Hussey, and had a child, Brian, in 1960. Luvisi moved with his family back to Louisville in when became Artist in Residence at the University of Louisville School of Music (1963-2001).

Luvisi's performance activities included many engagements across all fifty states, as well as in Canada, Mexico, Australia and Europe. He has been soloist with nearly every important orchestra in North America and conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Ormandy, William Steinberg, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Sir Neville Marriner and Robert Shaw. He appeared in London, Vienna, Berlin and other major capitals. As a chamber pianist, Luvisi has collaborated with many famous musicians and ensembles, including the Juilliard, Guarneri, Cleveland and Emerson Quartets, and artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Alexander Schneider, Leonard Rose, Richard Stoltzman, Jan DeGaetani, Frederica von Stade, Benita Valente and Dawn Upshaw. For two decades (circa 1983-2003), he was an Artist Member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Luvisi participated in the Marlboro, Aspen, Casals, Mostly Mozart, Chamber Music Northwest, Chautauqua and Tanglewood summer festivals, among others. He can be heard on the Delos, Bridge, Arabesque and Louisville Orchestra First Edition recording labels. During the 2000/01 season Mr. Luvisi presented the complete solo piano works of Beethoven in a twelve-concert series in his native city where, ten years earlier, he undertook a similar marathon of Mozart's complete solo keyboard compositions to celebrate that composer's bicentennial.