page_title: Kurt Masur
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Kurt Masur / Biography
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Kurt Masur mit Familie ADN-ZB / Grubitzsch / 9.2.81 / Leipzig: Prof. Kurt Masur, Gewandhauskapellmeister in Leipzig, im Kreise seiner Familie. Alle musizieren in diesem Haus: Frau Tomoko Masur (l.), Tochter Carolin (r.) und sogar der kleine Sohn Ken David. Abgebildete Personen: Masur, Kurt Prof.: Dirigent, Gewandhauskapellmeister, Philharmonie Dresden, DDR English: Kurt Masur, wife Tomoko, daughter Carolin and son Ken David in 1981 Español: Kurt Masur, su esposa Tomoko y sus hijos Carolin y Ken David en 1981.
context_page_description: Kurt Masur was a German conductor. Called "one of the last old-style maestros", he directed many of the principal orchestras of his era. He had a long career as the Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and also served as music director of the New York Philharmonic. He left many recordings of classical music played by major orchestras. Masur is also remembered for his actions to support peaceful demonstrations in the 1989 anti-government demonstrations in Leipzig; the protests were part of the events leading up to the fall of the Berlin wall.
context_section_description: Masur was born in Brieg, Lower Silesia, Germany (now Brzeg, Poland), and studied piano, composition and conducting in Leipzig, Saxony.
  His father was an electrical engineer, and as a young boy he completed an electrician's apprenticeship; he occasionally worked in his father's shop. However, Masur's calling lay elsewhere: in music. From ages 10 to 16, he took piano lessons with Katharina Hartmann. Reportedly, at the age of 16 the little finger on his right hand grew stiff due to an unusually shortened tendon, which hampered his piano lessons. It may have also partially led to his choice of becoming a conductor. His desire to become a conductor was likely cemented in 1943, when he and a friend saw a live performance of Beethoven's works; the orchestral performance led by Herbert Albert had a great effect on the young Masur. In 1943 and 1944 he took piano lessons at the Landesmusikschule in Breslau, which at the time was part of Germany but is now known as Wrocław in Poland.
  However the events of World War II would soon put a temporary halt to his practicing. As the war dragged on, Nazi Germany's casualties had been mounting and were leading to a manpower shortage. In response, Hitler's government instituted increasingly desperate conscription measures. In October 1944 the Nazis announced that all men between the ages of 16 and 60 could be conscripted, which included the young composer. Masur was drafted into the paratroopers late in 1944. He was sent to fight; "[o]ut of the 150 people of his unit, only 27 [including Masur] survived", before being captured by American and British forces on May 1, 1945. Masur and his family were lucky: not a single family member died in the war.
  From 1946 until 1948, he studied conducting, composition and piano at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig. He left at 21, never finishing his studies, when offered a job as répétiteur at the Landestheater Halle an der Saale (since renamed as the Halle Opera House, or Opernhaus Halle in German).
  Masur was married three times, and had a total of five children. His first marriage to Brigitte Stütze produced three children, two sons and a daughter, and it ended in divorce in 1966. He and his second wife, Irmgard Elsa Kaul, had a daughter, Carolin Masur, who became an opera singer. Irmgard Masur died in 1972 in a car accident in which Masur was severely injured. In 1975, he married his third wife, soprano and violist, Tomoko Sakurai: they had one son, Ken-David, a classical singer and conductor.
caption: Kurt Masur, wife Tomoko, daughter Carolin and son Ken David in 1981
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