Randolph Hokanson

Randolph Henning Hokanson (June 22, 1915 – October 18, 2018) was an American piano player and professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. He was known for his recordings of Bach, Schubert, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn. He played all of the Beethoven piano sonatas.

Hokanson was born in Washington in June 1915 as one of eleven children of a Swedish family in Bellingham. He started playing the piano when he was eight, and at fifteen, he started playing recitals often in Seattle and Victoria, British Columbia. After high school, he learned in London on a scholarship with Harold Samuel, Myra Hess and Carl Friedberg and later played by himself under Thomas Beecham, Pierre Monteux, Arthur Fiedler, Walter Susskind, Milton Katims, and others. He was a music teacher at the University of Washington from 1949 to 1984. He was still playing for the public at the age of 90.

In 2011, he wrote a book, With Head to the Music Bent: A Musician's Story. He was married to music writer Dorothy Cadzow (August 9, 1916 – June 26, 2001) from 1951 until she died.  He died on 18 October 2018 when he was 103 years old.

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Other websites

Category:1915 births
Category:2018 deaths
Category:American classical pianists
Category:University of Washington faculty
Category:Writers from Washington (state)