Byron Janis, the world-famous pianist who linked nations with music even as he overcame debilitating arthritis to keep playing, has died. He was 95.
“The passing of Byron, my husband of 58 years, is such a loss to me and the world,” his widow Maria Cooper Janis said in a statement. “Byron understood that music has many powers including that of bridging barriers that seem insurmountable, and in today’s fractured world, let us remember and practice this to honor his legacy.”
She said the pianist died Thursday evening at a New York City hospital and described her husband as not only a superb and dedicated musician, but also as “an exceptional human being who took his talents to their highest pinnacle.”
Born in 1928, Janis launched his 85-year musical career as a child prodigy, becoming the first student of Vladimir Horowitz in 1944 and debuting with Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony Orchestra, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He came to world renown in the late 1940s at the forefront of a generation of newly minted American talents, at age 18 the youngest artist to sign with RCA Victor Records.
Chopin, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Liszt and Prokofiev were all in his repertoire. Twice in his life, he stumbled upon unknown Chopin manuscripts and brought them to the world.
Christian Steiner/Maria Cooper Janis via AP
This undated photo provided by Maria Cooper Janis shows Byron Janis. Janis passed away March 14. (Christian Steiner/Maria Cooper Janis via AP)
In 1960, Janis became the first musician to take part in a cultural exchange program under the auspices of the U.S. State Department, touring Russia and serving as a de-facto musical ambassador.
Janis’s lefthand pinkie was permanently numb after a childhood accident when he was 11, severing a tendon and a nerve. In 1973, when he was 45, psoriatic arthritis set in, affecting his hands and his wrists. Though the pain was excruciating, he stopped at nothing to keep on performing — even after some of his finger joints fused.
“It was a life-and-death struggle for me every day for years,” Janis told the Chicago Tribune in 2014. “At every point I thought of not being able to continue performing, and it terrified me. Music, after all, was my life, my world, my passion.”
He finally went public with his diagnosis in 1986, becoming a spokesperson for the National Arthritis Foundation.
“In spite of adverse physical challenges throughout his career, he overcame them and it did not diminish his artistry,” said Cooper Janis. “Music is Byron’s soul, not a ticket to stardom, and his passion for and love of creating music, informed every day of his life of 95 years.”
With News Wire Services
