Garry Gillard > Perth Modern School > alumni >
Geoff didn't enter Mod in 1956, mysteriously turning up at the beginning of second year (1957). Although a year ahead of his age in an academically selective school, he had no trouble fitting in, both scholastically and socially.
I recall a lunchtime concert at school when with piano accompaniment he played something which Frank Campbell and Geoff Owen (and also the late Mick Manning, Geoff told me) remember as 'Spanish dances'. I remember my scepticism when little Geoff appeared on the Mod Hall stage with his fiddle, tuned up, and then proceeded to play magnificently, impressively, virtuosically.
Geoff had Parkinson's Disease, and died Saturday 17 February 2024 in home hospice with his wife Beverly in New Jersey. See obits below.
West Australian 1951:
TALENT FOR VIOLIN
"Phenomenal" Boy In Perth
SYDNEY, May 30: The leader of the Griller Quartet, Mr. Sydney Griller, says that Geoff Michaels, the six year-old son of a Perth doctor, has the finest violin talent he has heard anywhere.
Before the quartet left Sydney by plane for London after a seven-week concert tour for the A.B.C., Mr. Griller said: "Little Geoff Michaels's violin playing is phenomenal. I have travelled through every country in the world except Russia and Japan, but never have I heard anything to equal this child. I have advised his parents to take Geoff to Paris." The West Australian, 31 May 1951: 2.
Wikipedia:
Geoffrey Michaels (born 1944 in Perth, Western Australia) is an Australian-born violinist and violist, a child prodigy in the 1950s, who now performs and teaches primarily in the United States.
Geoffrey Michaels began taking violin lessons at the age of five, and was soon recognized as a prodigy. At 14, he became the youngest performer ever to win the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s concerto competition, and made his first recording, which sold out within a few weeks of its release.
At the age of 16 he went to the United States to attend the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied violin with Efrem Zimbalist, and violin and viola with Oscar Shumsky. While still a student he became a member of the Curtis String Quartet. He then pursued a solo career, winning the fourth annual Emma Feldman Competition in Philadelphia, and placing among the finalists in the Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition in Paris, and the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, and the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, where he played Zimbalist’s ‘Coq d’Or Fantasy.
He has been a professor at Florida State University and at the University of British Columbia. Michaels currently lives in the Philadelphia area.
Women's Weekly, 1959:
The first recording featuring brilliant Western Australian schoolboy violinist Geoffrey Michaels sold out within a few weeks of its release last month. Those who missed out on this fine Philips LP (SL10830) of the Australian Youth Orchestra, conducted by Sir Bernard Heinze, will be pleased to know that it is available again. The recording, which features Geoffrey as soloist in the Mendelssohn Concerto, was made during a performance of the Youth Orchestra in the Sydney Town Hall last May, when Geoffrey was only 14. The Perth teenager began studying the violin when he was five, using a quarter-size violin that looked like a toy. Last year, in his first attempt, he won the instrumental section of the A.B.C.'s Commonwealth-wide Concerto and Vocal competition, the youngest competitor ever to win it. The son of a doctor, Geoffrey attends Perth Modern School, plays tennis for his school, swims, surfs, and plays the piano for relaxation. He practises the violin for two hours each day - not enough according to great Russian violinist David Oistrakh, who heard Geoffrey play when he visited Australia, but as much time as he can spare until he has done his matriculation exams at the end of next year. Then he will go overseas to study with one of the "great masters." Women's Weekly, 21 October 1959: 7
Geoff Michaels is at the centre of the front row, next to birthday boy David Norgard, on his (David's) twentieth birthday in 1963 at his Nedlands home (photo taken by David's sister, I think).
Geoffrey led the orchestra for our production of The Sorcerer in 1959. Here he is with the eponymous star, Michael Phillips, in front of the wooden lockers in which we kept our books. They were two of at least three Jews in our year, the third of whom was my best friend in second year, Dave Feldman.
Geoff in a press photo (compressed) taken in Winthrop Hall c. 1968, probably in connexion with the WASO concerts in that year, when he played the Brahms Concerto with the orchestra, exact date unknown. I have a fullsize digital copy if anyone needs it.
Image from queenelisabethcompetition.be, 1971.
As the caption states: at a concert in Irkutsk in 1972. From YouTube.
Obituary by Patrick Cornish from The West Australian, 25 March 2024.
Stubbs, Roger with Alison Woodman, Music at Mod, Perth Modern School Museum Association, 2023.
Obit. in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Includes a link to a five-minute performance from YouTube, and some photos.
https://theviolinchannel.com/violinist-and-pedagogue-geoffrey-michaels-has-died-aged-79/
https://www.thestrad.com/news/violinist-geoffrey-michaels-has-died/17646.article Text:
Geoffrey Michaels was born in Perth, Western Australia and began playing the violin at the age of five. Recognised as a prodigy, at 14 he became the youngest performer ever to win the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s concerto competition, and he toured Australia as a recitalist and soloist with the major orchestras.
In 1961 at the age of 16, he was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music where he studied violin with Efrem Zimbalist, and violin and viola with Oscar Shumsky. While still a student, he accepted the Curtis Quartet’s invitation to become a member - a position he held until 1969. He was also a founding member of the Philadelphia-based Liebesfreud Quartet. Fellow violinist Philip Kates described Michaels as ’a long-time treasured quartet companion and a personal and professional inspiration.’
Michaels also performed with numerous other chamber ensembles, including the Janus Piano Trio, Performers’ Committee for Twentieth Century Music in New York, Richardson Chamber Players in Princeton, and Vancouver New Music Society.
Michaels was a prize winner in the Tchaikovsky Competition, the Queen Elisabeth Competition, and the Concours Jacques Thibaud in Paris. As a soloist, he appeared throughout Europe, North America and in his native Australia. In the US, he performed in venues such as Tully Hall, the Library of Congress, and the Kennedy Center, featuring solo works by Berg, Kurt Weill, Arvo Part and Alfred Schnittke. His performance of the US premiere of Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso, was broadcast in both the US and in the former Soviet Union.
An experienced teacher of violin, viola and chamber music, Michaels based himself in the US and taught at the New School of Music (now part of Temple University), Princeton University, and Swarthmore College. He served as professor at Florida State University and at the University of British Columbia.
He performed on a 1733 Carlo Bergonzi violin made in Cremona.
https://www.ghanacelebrities.com/2024/02/20/geoffrey-michaels-wiki-age-career-death/ There are errors in this article.
https://brbcollege.in/renowned-violinist-geoffrey-michaels-dies-at-79/ This link has already ceased to function.
Wikipedia page.
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