Leo Kestenberg

Leo Kestenberg was born in 1882 in Ružomberok

Kestenberg was born in Ružomberok, then in the Kingdom of Hungary, the son of a Jewish hazzan. The family moved to Prague and later to Liberec. His father gave him his first piano lessons.

He studied piano in Berlin with Franz Kullak and other teachers. In 1898 he met Ferruccio Busoni, who became a close friend, and in 1900 he attended Busoni's master class in Weimar. That year he also joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany.

He became a concert pianist known for playing Liszt and taught piano at the Musikhochschule Berlin from 1921 to 1929. From 1918 he worked in the Prussian Ministry of Culture, where he planned a reform of music education from kindergarten to university. He was dismissed from all his posts for political reasons in 1932.

After the Nazis rose to power he moved to Prague, where he helped form an international organization for music education. In 1939 he moved to the Land of Israel and became music director of the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1945 he founded a college for music educators in Tel Aviv and was its first director.

He received the Engel Prize in 1958 and published his memoirs in 1961. He died in Tel Aviv in 1962 and was buried in Nahalat Yitzhak Cemetery.