Dora Zaslavsky

Dora Zaslavsky Koch (July 18, 1904 – September 9, 1987)^[1] was a Russian-born American pianist who was one of the first graduates of and later a teacher at the Manhattan School of Music.^[2]

Dora Zaslavsky Koch

Early life

Zaslavsky was born in the Russian Empire in 1904, arriving in New York as an infant on February 22, 1905. Her family was Jewish, from the city of Kremenchuk in the oblast of Poltava. Her father Max had emigrated to the United States the previous year. She was traveling with her mother Celia née Fleisher,^[3] older siblings Joseph and Fay, and a young cousin. Another brother Israel (also George) was born six years later.^[4][5] Other sources give Zaslavsky’s birth year as 1905, but this is incompatible with the ship manifest information.^[6] The family story goes that Zaslavsky's musical talent was discovered "thanks to a large toy piano with real black and white keys" that her father, a peddler, had brought home for her.^[7]

She studied piano with Harold Bauer^[8] and Janet Schenck, founder of the Neighborhood Music School, which became the Manhattan School of Music, and she was the school's first graduate in 1920. Zaslavsky continued her studies with Wilhelm Backhaus in Philadelphia and Paris, then returned to New York to take up her teaching career at the Manhattan School, where she taught alongside Constance Keene. Among her students were David Bar-Ilan and Abbey Simon.^[9]

Marriages

John Koch

Zaslavsky married New Yorker Herbert Spencer Schwartz (also Herbert Thomas Schwartz) on September 12, 1927.^[10] He was a gifted musician whose mother had hoped he would become a concert pianist, as Zaslavsky’s father had hoped for her. Schwartz, however, chose to pursue a college education rather than continue in music. At the time of their marriage he was beginning his third undergraduate year at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, thinking of becoming a physician. He was accepted into medical school but dropped out after one semester, entering Columbia University the following fall to study philosophy. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the philosophy of music, graduating in 1933. Zaslavsky and Schwartz were amicably divorced on August 10, 1935,^[11] each of them interested in someone else at the time.

Zaslavsky's second husband, John Koch, grew up in Ann Arbor, and joined the art scene in Paris at age nineteen, where he lived for nearly five years, returning in June, 1933, to Ann Arbor.^[12][13] When he settled in Manhattan the following year, he already knew Zaslavsky, either having met her in New York City before he left for Paris, or having met her during one of her visits to Paris. He was "determined to win her."^[12] Koch stayed first with a friend, then moved to a room next door to the one at 56th & Madison in which Zaslavsky was living with her sister Fay. Koch and Zaslavsky were married on December 23, 1935.^[14] Their first apartment was at 865 First Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. The bedroom served as his studio; the living room with piano was her studio.^[15]

References

1. "Dora Zaslavsky Koch Dead; Pianist and Teacher Was 82". The New York Times. September 11, 1987. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
2. "Virtual Yearbooks: Pre-1940s". Manhattan School of Music. Retrieved 2 January 2022.
3. "New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1940," database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24WD-SKV : 20 March 2015), Herbert S. Schwartz and Dora Zaslawskaya, 12 Sep 1927; citing Marriage, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, New York City Municipal Archives, New York; FHL microfilm 1,653,275.
4. "United States Census, 1920," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MJB6-YTR : 14 December 2015), Max Zaslaffsky, Manhattan Assembly District 13, New York, New York, United States; citing sheet 11B, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 1,821,208.
5. "United States Census, 1930", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X42N-TK4 : 8 December 2015), Max Zaslavsky, 1930.
6. Passenger search for Doba Saslawsky at http://www.libertyellisfoundation.org/ accessed 22 Sep 2016
7. Lopate, Phillip; Sussman, Elisabeth; Thomas, Michael M.; Turner, Grady T.; Weiner, Mina Rieur (2001). John Koch: Painting a New York Life. New-York Historical Society in association with Scala Publishers Ltd. pp. 10, 41. ISBN 185759-266-2.
8. "Centennial Spotlight: The Legacies of pianists Dora Zaslavsky and Constance Keene". Manhattan School of Music.
9. New York Times Archive (September 11, 1987). "Dora Zaslavsky Koch Dead; Pianist and Teacher Was 82". New York Times.
10. "New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1940," database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24WD-SKV : 20 March 2015), Herbert S. Schwartz and Dora Zaslawskaya, 12 Sep 1927; citing Marriage, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, New York City Municipal Archives, New York; FHL microfilm 1,653,275.
11. "SCHWARTZ v. SCHWARTZ | 113 Ohio App. 275 (1960) | oapp2751344 | Leagle.com". Leagle.
12. Lopate et al. 2001, p. 31.
13. "New York, New York Passenger and Crew Lists, 1909, 1925-1957," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24V3-9FB : 2 March 2021), John Koch, 1933; citing Immigration, New York, New York, United States, NARA microfilm publication T715 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.)
14. "New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1940," database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:248X-1SX : accessed 14 March 2016), John Koch and Dora Zaslavsky, 23 Dec 1935; citing Marriage, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, New York City Municipal Archives, New York; FHL microfilm 1,674,300.
15. Lopate et al. 2001, p. 108.