Louis Krasner

Louis Krasner (4 May 1995) was a Russian-born American classical violinist who premiered the violin concertos of Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg.

Biography Louis Krasner was born in Cherkassy, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire (now part of Ukraine). He arrived in the United States at the age of 5, and graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music in 1922. He also premiered Arnold Schoenberg's Violin Concerto in December 1940, with Leopold Stokowski leading the Philadelphia Orchestra. Among the American composers whose works he premiered were Roger Sessions, Henry Cowell, and Roy Harris.

Krasner retired from solo performing to become concertmaster of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, a position he held from 1944 to 1949. He won the 1983 Sanford Medal from Yale University and the 1995 Commonwealth Award.

He died in 1995 in Brookline, Massachusetts, aged 91.