Felix Wurman
Encyclopedia
Felix Wurman was an American
cellist
and composer.
during the Anschluss
period of Nazi
rule.
Wurman began playing the cello at age seven and gave his first public performance, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
, at age 12. He was invited to attend the Juilliard School
, but chose to study in Europe under the British cellist Jacqueline du Pré
. Du Pré, who was no longer able to play due to multiple sclerosis
, taught Wurman for two years.
and performed with Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove
in Cornwall, England. Wurman performed with musicians including Hungarian violinist Sandor Vegh
and Johannes Goritski. In the early 1980s, Wurman was one of the founders of Domus, a chamber music group that performed in its own portable geodesic dome tent built by Wurman. The group, originally consisting of Wurman and Richard Lester
on cello, Krysia Osostowicz on violin, Robin Ireland on viola, Michael Faust on flute, and Susan Tomes on piano, began at the International Musicians' Seminars at Prussia Cove. By using a portable concert hall that could be erected by musicians themselves with seating for an audience of 200, Domus sought to build a broader audience for chamber music and performed in unconventional locations. Domus participated in the European festival circuit and later won two German Record Critics' Prizes and a Gramophone Award
for Best Chamber Music Recording for its recording of Fauré: Piano Quartets 1 & 2.
Tomes, who went on to become a noted concert pianist and writer, described Wurman as an "animateur of genius" whose love of music, fun and adventure "made people want to be in his gang." Tomes described the founding of Domus:
and became a free-lance cellist in Chicago.
Wurman returned to Europe frequently and studied in Amsterdam under Anner Bylsma
. Bylsma encouraged Wurman to build a five-string cello so that he could perform a broad repertoire of transcriptions, consisting mostly of works for violin. Wurman performed concerts of the Sonatas and partitas for solo violin at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
and at the Cultural Center in Chicago, both of which were simultaneously broadcast on radio.
Wurman later moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico
where he joined the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. He also continued his interest in chamber music, performing for the Placitas Artist Series, East Mountain Artists Series, Corrales Cultural Arts Council and Albuquerque Chamber Soloists. Wurman also formed the Noisy Neighbors Chamber Orchestra, made up of musicians from the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. In September 2000, when the Noisy Neighbors began performing under a 200-seat geodesic dome in a parking lot at Cedar Crest, Wurman told the Albuquerque Journal that the new group was a continuation of the Domus concept—a group with a mobile concert hall that would perform any kind of classical music wherever possible.
. Wurman called the Sunday concerts the Church of Beethoven. Wurman said he founded the church to help people "find spirituality through culture." Wurman named the church after Beethoven because the composer "poured all that spirituality that he couldn't find a place for in the traditional church, he poured it straight into his art." Wurman believed there were many nonreligious people "looking to be uplifted on a Sunday morning." The services also included poetry readings, and one poet who participated described Wurman's goal in forming the Church of Beethoven as follows: "Wurman wanted to foster the same sense of communal experience one can have at a church, but without the dogma."
The Albuquerque Journal described the latest entry into the city's community of churches:
The Church of Beethoven also received extensive coverage in the national media and was profiled by, among other outlets, National Public Radio and the Los Angeles Times
. NPR's Washington correspondent, Brigid McCarthy, reported on the church as follows:
McCarthy described the services as follows: "It's sort of like a variety show, with poetry readings, group singing, silence and music. But he's trying to make it more than that: a community, a spiritual place, like a church for people who don't go to church." The Los Angeles Times described the church this way:
In 2008, the Church of Beethoven relocated from the filling station to a new home in a renovated warehouse in downtown Albuquerque which has been described as "rather cathedral-like, with warm red walls, vaulted wood ceilings and stained glass windows."
Wurman died of complications from cancer.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
cellist
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
and composer.
Early years
Wurman was the son of Hans Wurman, a Jewish composer and pianist who had escaped from AustriaAustria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
during the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
period of Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
rule.
Wurman began playing the cello at age seven and gave his first public performance, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...
, at age 12. He was invited to attend the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
, but chose to study in Europe under the British cellist Jacqueline du Pré
Jacqueline du Pré
Jacqueline Mary du Pré OBE was a British cellist. She is particularly associated with Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor; her interpretation has been described as "definitive" and "legendary." Her career was cut short by multiple sclerosis, which forced her to stop performing at 28 and led to her...
. Du Pré, who was no longer able to play due to multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...
, taught Wurman for two years.
Domus
While in England, Wurman focused on chamber musicChamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
and performed with Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove
Prussia Cove
Prussia Cove , formerly called the King's Cove, is a small private estate on the coast of Mount's Bay and to the east of Cudden Point, west Cornwall, UK. Part of the area is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest , a Geological Conservation Review site and is in an Area of Outstanding...
in Cornwall, England. Wurman performed with musicians including Hungarian violinist Sandor Vegh
Sándor Végh
Sándor Végh was a Hungarian, later French, violinist and conductor. He was best known as one of the great chamber music violinists of the twentieth century.- Education :...
and Johannes Goritski. In the early 1980s, Wurman was one of the founders of Domus, a chamber music group that performed in its own portable geodesic dome tent built by Wurman. The group, originally consisting of Wurman and Richard Lester
Richard Lester
Richard Lester is an American film director based in Britain. Lester is notable for his work with The Beatles in the 1960s and his work on the Superman film series in the 1980s.-Early years and television:...
on cello, Krysia Osostowicz on violin, Robin Ireland on viola, Michael Faust on flute, and Susan Tomes on piano, began at the International Musicians' Seminars at Prussia Cove. By using a portable concert hall that could be erected by musicians themselves with seating for an audience of 200, Domus sought to build a broader audience for chamber music and performed in unconventional locations. Domus participated in the European festival circuit and later won two German Record Critics' Prizes and a Gramophone Award
Gramophone Award
The Gramophone Awards are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry, often referred to as the Oscars for classical music. The winners are selected annually by critics for the Gramophone magazine and various members of the industry, including...
for Best Chamber Music Recording for its recording of Fauré: Piano Quartets 1 & 2.
Tomes, who went on to become a noted concert pianist and writer, described Wurman as an "animateur of genius" whose love of music, fun and adventure "made people want to be in his gang." Tomes described the founding of Domus:
"We wanted to find a way of making music that was less formal and intimidating than we were beginning to experience as young professionals playing in orthodox concert halls. When we started discussing how to create our own more intimate concerts, someone jokingly said that we should build a portable concert hall. Felix was several steps ahead of us, then as at many other times. As an American school student he had come across Buckminster FullerBuckminster FullerRichard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
's designs for a geodesic domeGeodesic domeA geodesic dome is a spherical or partial-spherical shell structure or lattice shell based on a network of great circles on the surface of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements that have local triangular rigidity and also distribute the stress across the structure. When...
, and he declared that if we were to have a portable concert hall, it must be in the shape of a dome. With typical enterprise and energy he set about building us a geodesic dome. It wasn't the most practical idea, but the beauty of the white dome galvanised lots of young musicians into helping to make it a reality. ... Felix was probably the only person in the world who could have got me to run about in the rain carrying heavy boxes full of aluminium tubes. When things got tough, as they soon did, he rallied us all with his heartfelt cry of, 'It must never not be fun!!'"
Return to the United States
Wurman later returned to Chicago, joined the Lyric Opera or Chicago OrchestraLyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
and became a free-lance cellist in Chicago.
Wurman returned to Europe frequently and studied in Amsterdam under Anner Bylsma
Anner Bylsma
Anner Bylsma is a Dutch cellist who plays on both modern, and period instruments in an historically informed baroque style. He took an interest in music from an early age...
. Bylsma encouraged Wurman to build a five-string cello so that he could perform a broad repertoire of transcriptions, consisting mostly of works for violin. Wurman performed concerts of the Sonatas and partitas for solo violin at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
and at the Cultural Center in Chicago, both of which were simultaneously broadcast on radio.
Wurman later moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city population was 545,852 as of the 2010 Census and ranks as the 32nd-largest city in the U.S. As...
where he joined the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. He also continued his interest in chamber music, performing for the Placitas Artist Series, East Mountain Artists Series, Corrales Cultural Arts Council and Albuquerque Chamber Soloists. Wurman also formed the Noisy Neighbors Chamber Orchestra, made up of musicians from the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. In September 2000, when the Noisy Neighbors began performing under a 200-seat geodesic dome in a parking lot at Cedar Crest, Wurman told the Albuquerque Journal that the new group was a continuation of the Domus concept—a group with a mobile concert hall that would perform any kind of classical music wherever possible.
Church of Beethoven
In early 2007, after performing at a church service, Wurman was inspired to create the "Church of Beethoven." Wurman noted it was not the theology he liked; it was "the ecstasy of the music, and the warmth of the parishioners enjoying it together." Wurman came up with an idea: "How about a church that has music as its principal element, rather than as an afterthought?" Wurman recruited musicians from the New Mexico Symphony Orhcestra, and they began playing Sunday concerts in an abandoned gas station off old Route 66U.S. Route 66
U.S. Route 66 was a highway within the U.S. Highway System. One of the original U.S. highways, Route 66 was established on November 11, 1926 -- with road signs erected the following year...
. Wurman called the Sunday concerts the Church of Beethoven. Wurman said he founded the church to help people "find spirituality through culture." Wurman named the church after Beethoven because the composer "poured all that spirituality that he couldn't find a place for in the traditional church, he poured it straight into his art." Wurman believed there were many nonreligious people "looking to be uplifted on a Sunday morning." The services also included poetry readings, and one poet who participated described Wurman's goal in forming the Church of Beethoven as follows: "Wurman wanted to foster the same sense of communal experience one can have at a church, but without the dogma."
The Albuquerque Journal described the latest entry into the city's community of churches:
"Traveling south on Fourth Street from Albuquerque's Central Avenue, you'll encounter the Episcopal Church of St. John, the First United Methodist Church, the Sacred Heart Catholic Church and the Potter's House -- Christian Fellowship Ministries. At Fourth and Pacific SW, add a new 'church' to the list. It's the 'Church of Beethoven,' the idea of entrepreneur-cellist Felix Wurman. Wurman has been producing an hourlong mix of music, poetry and readings for the past 12 Sunday mornings at the arts venue called The Filling Station."
The Church of Beethoven also received extensive coverage in the national media and was profiled by, among other outlets, National Public Radio and the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
. NPR's Washington correspondent, Brigid McCarthy, reported on the church as follows:
"Albuquerque, N.M., is no different from any other American city, in terms of its religious life; you've got churches, synagogues, a couple of Unitarian congregations and a mosque. But an abandoned gas station along old Route 66 is the unlikely home for another kind of Sunday-morning service, and it's one that you won't find anywhere else. It's called the Church of Beethoven. Felix Wurman isn't a rabbi, priest or preacher. He plays the cello. He didn't feel at home in church, because he's not religious. But he says he also felt that there was something missing in formal concert halls where he performs. 'One of the things you do as a professional classical musician is play church jobs,' Wurman says, 'and I always felt that this is so wonderful, all this music, the collection of people, this beautiful room. But there was something lacking.'"
McCarthy described the services as follows: "It's sort of like a variety show, with poetry readings, group singing, silence and music. But he's trying to make it more than that: a community, a spiritual place, like a church for people who don't go to church." The Los Angeles Times described the church this way:
"It is a church without preaching, and without prayer. At its Sunday morning services there is something spiritual, all right, but it doesn't have to do with Allah, or Buddha, or God. Instead, it comes from music, from passionate renditions of works composed by Brahms and Bach and, of course, Beethoven -- for whom the church is named."
In 2008, the Church of Beethoven relocated from the filling station to a new home in a renovated warehouse in downtown Albuquerque which has been described as "rather cathedral-like, with warm red walls, vaulted wood ceilings and stained glass windows."
Battle with cancer and death
Wurman was diagnosed with bladder cancer in November 2008 and underwent surgery in the spring 2009. When the cancer returned and spread to his bone, Wurman left Albuquerque in the fall 2009 to be near his sister in North Carolina and to receive treatment there. The Church of Beethoven continued to thrive even after Wurman's departure as musicians, poets and participants worked to keep the concept alive. One week before Wurman's death, the Church of Beethoven conducted a fundraiser to help pay the cost of Wurman's medical care; the event featured Schubert's Octet in F major with poets giving readings in brief intervals between the six movements. Poets Tony Hunt and Lisa Gill read poems centered on the themes of time, change, and friendship. The service was intended as an opportunity to demonstrate the community's appreciation for Wurman's life and commitment.Wurman died of complications from cancer.