Today’s Jewish Birthday: Yaltah Menuhin

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Yaltah Menuhin, 2000 (Photo: Wikipedia)

Yaltah Menuhin (October 7, 1921 – June 9, 2001) was an American-born British pianist, artist and poet.

Yaltah was born in San Francisco, the youngest of three extraordinarily musically gifted children. Her siblings were Yehudi Menuhin and Hephzibah Menuhin. Through her father Moshe Menuhin, she descended from a distinguished rabbinical dynasty. Yaltah was named after her mother, Marutha’s, home town of Yalta in Crimea. At the age of three, she became part of the rigorous regime already imposed on her siblings: the family employed tutors for the children, and Yaltah had her first piano lessons from the wife of the tutor in harmony and counterpoint. In 1960, she married (third marriage) an American pianist Joel Ryce who later retrained as a psychotherapist. Joel died in 1998.

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Tomorrow, October 8: R.L. Stine