Isaac Stern

He married ballet dancer Nora Kaye in 1948 but the marriage did not last long and they divorced the next year.

In 1951, he tied the nuptial knot for the second time with Vera Lindenblit. With Vera, he had three children - Shira Stern, David Stern and Michael Stern. This marriage lasted for 43 years before they got divorced in 1994.

His third wife was Linda Reynolds whom he married in 1997.

Isaac Stern belonged to a Jewish family in Krzemieniec (formerly a part of Poland but now a city of Western Ukraine). His family shifted to the United States and settled in San Francisco when he was barely fourteen months old.

His mother was a professional singer who taught him music. He started to play the piano and violin when he was very young.

In 1928, he enrolled at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he attended classes till 1931 before taking private lessons from Louis Persinger, an American violinist and pianist. Thereafter, he returned to the San Francisco Conservatory and studied music under the guidance of Naoum Blinder for five years. During this period, he developed interest towards chamber music.

In February 1936, he played Saint-Sa�ns' Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor under the direction of Pierre Monteux, a French conductor. In Los Angeles, he played the Tchaikovsky concerto under Otto Klemperer.

He came into the limelight for his performance at the Carnegie Hall in January 1943. This show was a huge success and he secured a significant position as a musician of that era. In the same year, he performed for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Dimitri Mitropoulos.

He also performed for the American troops in Iceland, Greenland and the South Pacific from 1943 to 1944.

In 1945, he worked for Columbia records. The next year was a turning point in his music career as he was offered to play violin for ‘Humoresque’, a Hollywood film. The film is about the life of a young violinist with whom he could relate personally and professionally as well.

His remarkable work in Humoresque earned him the golden opportunity to work with several renowned conductors like Sir Thomas Beecham, Bruno Walter and George Szell to name a few.