Alice Herz-Sommer (1903-2014)

Alice Herz-Sommer, an esteemed pianist specializing in Chopin, a friend of Franz Kafka and Gustav Mahler, and a survivor of the Terezin (Theresienstadt) concentration camp, has died in London at the age of 110. Believed to have been the oldest survivor of the Holocaust, she continued making music until shortly before her death.

An obituary by The New York Times’ Margalit Fox:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/28/world/europe/alice-herz-sommer-pianist-who-survived-holocaust-dies-at-110.html?hp&_r=0

The New Yorker’s Alex Ross recounts his visit with Herz-Sommer last summer:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/11/alex-ross-meeting-alice-herz-sommer-oldest-holocaust-survivor.html

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Herz-Sommer performing Chopin, at age 108, is the last of a set of videos of elder pianists assembled by Igor Toronyi-Lalic for The Spectator (UK):

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/culturehousedaily/2014/02/worlds-oldest-pianists-greatest-recordings/

(via Arts Journal)

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Slate movie critic Dana Stevens reviews “The Lady in Number 6,” Malcom Clarke’s film on Herz-Sommer, “pretty much a lock,” in Stevens’ view, to win an Academy Award for best documentary short subject:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2014/02/the_lady_in_number_6_nominated_for_the_best_documentary_short_oscar_reviewed.html

ADDENDUM (March 3): “The Lady in Number 6” won an Oscar.